DANTE  AND  OTHER 
WANING  CLASSICS 


DANTE  AND  OTHER 
WANING  CLASSICS 


BY 

ALBERT  MORDELL 

Author  of  The  Shifting  of  Literary  Values 


ACROPOLIS  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

PHILADELPHIA 

1915 


COPYRIGHT,  1915,  BY 

ACROPOLIS  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PREFACE   5 

DANTE:    THE  DIVINE  COMEDY 9 

MILTON  :     PARADISE  LOST 47 

BUNYAN  :    PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS 69 

A  KEMPIS  :    THE  IMITATION  OF  CHRIST 85 

ST.   AUGUSTINE:     CONFESSIONS 95 

PASCAL  :     THOUGHTS    107 

APPENDIX  .  123 


2083067 


PEEFACE 

I  have  chosen  for  critical  examination  six  of  the  most 
famous  classics  of  Christendom.  These  include  two  highly 
lauded  epic  poems  of  modern  times,  the  Divine  Comedy  and 
'Paradise  Lost;  two  works  the  circulation  of  each  of  which  has 
been  surpassed  only  by  the  Bible,  the  Imitation  of  Christ  and 
•Pilgrim's  Progress;  a  noted  religious  autobiography,  St. 
Augustine's  Confessions  and  an  important  product  in  Christian 
apologetics,  Pascal's  Thoughts.  These  works  are  saturated 
in  whole  or  part  with  theological  dogmas  that  have  been  dis- 
carded by  many  people  to-day.  It  is  my  intention  to  show 
how  medieval  fallacies  have  ruined  what  might  otherwise  have 
been  perfect  literary  masterpieces.  The  passages  in  these 
books  that  still  live  are  the  secular  ones.  These  we  can  still 
read  with  enjoyment,  but  the  authors  regarded  them  as  sub- 
sidiary to  the  theological  intent.  I  have  tried  to  point  out 
that  the  literary  value  of  these  classics  has  waned  in  propor- 
tion to  the  extent  and  falsity  of  the  theology  pervading  them. 

Literature  should  not  be  a  vehicle  for  theology.  The  poet 
often  must  describe  sensations  the  theologian  fears;  he  must 
express  ideas  the  latter  dare  not  think.  Theology  attaches 
itself  usually  to  untenable  and  evanescent  dogmas;  its  spirit 
is  that  of  restraint;  its  atmosphere  is  confining.  Literature 
shuns  creeds  and  edicts  and  theories;  it  knows  few  barriers; 
it  seeks  the  open.  The  chief  mission  of  literature  is  often  to 
undo  the  evil  work  wrought  by  false  theologies.  It  is  sublime 
when  it  depicts  tragedies  due  to  conformity  with  theological 


6  PREFACE 

ethics.  It  is  glorious  when  it  shows  us  types  who  have  eman- 
cipated themselves  from  tenets  which  enslave  the  mind  and 
stifle  the  soul.  Literature  deals  with  realities,  theology  with 
illusions.  One  is  the  worship  of  beauty,  grants  deference  to 
the  senses,  advocates  liberality  of  speculation  ;  the  other  means 
fig  leaves  and  cramping,  garments,  horror  of  the  body  and  the 
natural  emotions,  enmity  to  daring  investigation.  The  paths 
of  literature  and  theology  lie  in  opposite  directions.  One  is 
ever  seeking  new  truths,  the  other  rests  content  with  the  old. 
One  loves  liberty,  the  other  bows  to  authority;  one  breaks 
down  idols,  the  other  worships  them.  One  is  restless,  ever 
questioning,  ever  animated;  the  other  is  passive,  subscribing 
to  some  faith  and  chilled  to  the  marrow. 

Literature  takes  man  as  he  is;  it  roots  itself  in  human 
nature  and  material  as  well  as  spiritual  desires;  it  shows  us 
the  individual  with  his  impulses  to  exercise  all  his  faculties 
and  satisfy  his  instincts.  Theology  is  taken  up  with  devotion 
and  repentance;  it  aims  after  piety;  it  wishes  to  dehumanize 
man. 

"  If  literature  is  to  be  made  a  study  of  human  nature,"  wrote 
Cardinal  Newman,  who  certainly  was  no  enemy  of  theology, 
"you  cannot  have  a  Christian  literature.  It  is  a  contra- 
diction in  terms  to  attempt  a  sinless  literature  of  sinful  man." 

It  is  a  matter  of  great  regret  that  some  of  the  ablest  writers 
should  have  embraced  doctrines  that  have  become  obsolete. 
What  a  pity  that  the  presence  of  exploded  dogmas  should 
vitiate  literary  performances !  It  is  still  sadder  when  we  find 
that  the  entire  substructures  of  some  classics  are  founded  on 
the  fossilized  remains  of  false  principles. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  great  reputation  attained 
by  the  classics  I  am  examining,  was  originally  created  by 


PREFACE  7 

literary  guides  who  subscribed  to  the  very  doctrines  which 
these  works  advocated.  The  favorable  judgment  was  carried 
down  to  and  repeated  by  succeeding  critics  who  also  adhered 
to  the  same  dogmas.  Finally  when  the  foundations  of  these 
books  were  shaken,  people  continued  to  hold  them  in  the 
greatest  esteem,  but  found  other  reasons  for  doing  so.  We 
should  not  be  misled  into  blindly  worshipping  literary  pro- 
ductions with  whose  central  ideas  and  views  of  life  we  totally 
disagree. 

My  attempt  to  dislodge  these  famous  works  from  their  high 
place  no  doubt  seems  presumptuous.  They  have  the  approval 
of  the  past  behind  them.  It  would  be  much  easier  to  follow 
in  the  beaten  track  and  add  my  share  of  praise.  Moreover 
some  one  will  certainly  be  offended.  I  have  met  people  who 
admire  Milton  but  are  not  moved  by  Dante.  Some  wai 
eloquent  over  Pascal  but  are  horrified  by  A  Kempis.  How- 
ever it  will  be  seen  that  my  effort  is  not  always  iconoclastic. 
I  have  tried  to  see  value  in  many  of  the  secular  portions  in 
these  classics  which  aesthetic  critics  still  admire.  But  I  have 
thought  it  best  to  state  my  adverse  views  strongly  when  I 
felt  justified.  I  also  did  not  consider  it  necessary  to  engage 
in  polemical  work  and  try  to  demolish  dogmas  whose  falsity 
I  take  for  granted. 

The  principles  of  criticism  I  have  applied  have  been  laid 
down  in  a  booklet  I  published  several  years  ago  called  The 
Shifting  of  Literary  Values.  For  reasons  advanced  there,  I 
do  not  follow  the  rule  that  one  should  judge  books  by  the 
times  in  which  they  were  written,  for  historical  criticism 
often  tends  to  become  an  apology  for  past  error ;  and  I  assume 
that  the  intellectual  import  of  a  book  must  also  be  taken  into 
consideration  apart  from  the  technical  qualities  in  it. 


8  PREFACE 

I  also  wish  to  state  that  it  is  not  absolutely  necessary  that 
the  reader  should  have  read  the  various  books  here  dealt  with, 
in  order  to  be  able  to  pursue  my  argument.  I  have  tried  to 
give  an  outline  of  the  plot  or  a  summary  of  the  leading  ideas 
of  the  classics  studied,  in  the  course  of  my  criticism.  Un- 
doubtedly, however,  the  person  who  is  familiar  with  these 
works  will  be  in  a  more  advantageous  position  to  pass  upon 
the  merits  or  demerits  of  my  views. 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  me  to  be  able  to  express  my  thanks  and 
acknowledgments  for  encouragement,  assistance  and  reading 
of  the  manuscript  and  proofs  to  my  friends  David  Bortin, 
Esq.,  of  the  Philadelphia  bar,  and  George  Dobsevage,  of  New 
York. 

ALBERT  MORDELL. 

August  13,  1915. 


DANTE:    THE  DIVINE  COMEDY 

Dante  is  usually  regarded  one  of  the  three  greatest  of  the 
world's  poets.  The  reader  has  the  right  to  expect  that  his 
emotions  will  be  aroused  to  their  highest  pitch  by  the  poetical 
masterpiece  of  one  who  ranks  so  high.  He  is  justified  in 
assuming  that  he  will  not  find  his  intelligence  insulted  too 
frequently  and  that  the  poem  will  possess  much  that  is  still 
vital  to-day.  He  dare  hope  that  he  will  not  often  see  a  display 
of  bad  taste,  false  judgments  and  unworthy  sentiments. 
Indeed  he  should  demand  that  a  work  of  such  great  repute 
as  the  Divine  Comedy  should  move  him  more  than  most 
literary  productions  do.  The  poem  should  be  free  from  most 
of  the  intellectual  errors  and  artistic  deficiencies  of  other 
literary  products  of  the  time  in  which  it  was  written;  it 
should  still  make  a  strong  appeal  to  us. 

The  reader  has  but  to  turn  at  random  to  a  few  cantos  of  the 
Inferno  and  of  the  Paradiso  to  discover  immediately  two  facts 
about  the  poet.  The  first  is  that  Dante  delighted  in  contriv- 
ing horrible  and  imaginary  tortures  in  the  next  world  for  those 
who  sinned  here.  The  stern  and  vindictive  Florentine  heaps 
up  the  most  revolting  and  nauseating  horrors  upon  horrors; 
he  has  appointed  himself  moral  censor  of  his  fellow  men  and 
torments  them  with  the  most  hideous  punishments;  he  fails 
in  the  first  function  a  poet  should  have,  that  of  winning  our 
sympathy.  He  alienates  it  from  beginning  to  end,  from  the 
time  he  puts  in  the  first  circle  of  hell  unbaptized  infants  and 
great  men  of  Rome  and  Greece  until  he  shows  us  in  the  last 


10  DANTE  AND  OTHEK  WANING  CLASSICS 

circle  the  fictitious  Lucifer  chewing  in  his  mouth  the  Roman 
patriots  Brutus  and  Cassius  along  with  Judas.  The  second 
fact  about  the  poet  is  that  he  follows  the  scholastic  philosophy, 
and  peoples  his  heaven  chiefly  with  saints,  theologians,  crusa- 
ders and  characters  who  subscribed  to  theological  absurdities. 
Dante  was  a  man  of  great  learning  but  little  intellect;  he 
ignored  vast  treasures  of  ancient  culture  rediscovered  prior  to 
the  Eenaissance.  He  was  hopelessly  behind  his  own  time  in 
philosophy  and  religion;  he  was  a  serious  adherent  to  dogmas 
and  doctrines  that  many  people  were  abandoning  in  his  own 
day.  No  poem  contains  more  versified  hopeless  speculation 
than  the  Paradiso.  Much  of  this  section  is  no  longer  con- 
sidered of  any  aesthetic  import  and  is  studied  by  commentators 
who  wish  to  know  the  beliefs  entertained  by  the  poet.  From 
the  very  first  canto  where  the  universe  is  vaguely  described 
as  something  like  unto  God,  to  the  last  where  the  poet  actually 
tells  us  that  he  caught  a  glimpse  of  God  Himself,  we  marvel 
as  we  read  that  his  intellect  was  so  limited.  His  power  as 
a  poet  is  corroded  by  his  weakness  as  a  thinker. 

In  the  Divine  Comedy  we  having  living  before  us  again  all 
the  bigotry  and  fatuity  of  the  medieval  ages;  we  have  a  sum- 
ming up  of  all  the  speculation  which  rational  men  to-day 
reject;  all  the  superstition,  darkness  and  intolerance  of  a 
millennium  are  crystallized  in  this  poem.  But  there  are  several 
episodes  where  the  poet  forgets  his  views  and  tells  us  of  actual 
events  of  human  interest;  these  stories  usually  proceed  from 
the  lips  of  different  characters  he  meets  in  his  sojourn  and  are 
the  literary  portions  of  the  work  that  continue  to  live  for  us. 
They  are  the  only  passages  that  really  give  the  Divine  Comedy 
any  poetical  merit  and  have  carried  it  forward  into  our  time. 
The  famous  Paolo  and  Francesca  story  is  one  of  these  gems 


DANTE:    THE  DIVINE  COMEDY  11 

set  in  a  heap  of  refuse  matter.  The  poet's  personality  also 
interests  us;  his  comments,  his  execrations,  his  hatred  of 
moral  infamy,  his  attitude  toward  friends  and  enemies  he 
meets,  all  give  us  an  insight  into  the  soul  of  the  unfortunate 
and  proud  Italian  exile.  We  condemn  and  admire  and  pity 
and  smile  at  him  as  we  read  on,  but  he  has  drawn  his  own 
portrait  as  if  he  had  painted  it  on  canvas  for  us. 

Let  us  examine  the  poem  as  an  artistic  product.  Let  us 
lay  stress  on  all  the  ugliness,  grotesqueness  and  cruelty  in  it; 
let  us  not  be  hindered  by  the  eulogies  that  have  been  pro- 
nounced upon  it :  let  us  disentangle  the  several  fine  episodes 
and  declamations  in  it.  We  shall  have  as  a  residuum  some- 
thing that  will  still  give  the  poet  a  place  in  literature,  although 
not  among  the  greatest  of  the  world's  poets.  We  shall  dis- 
cover that  very  few  poets  have  been  as  much  overrated  as 
Dante,  that  he  has  scarcely  any  message  for  us  and  that  the 
few  ideas  that  he  did  try  to  convey  to  us  were  embodied  in 
images  that  do  not  stir  us.  His  chief  merit  will  be  found  to 
reside  in  his  reports  of  a  few  disconnected  conversations  held 
here  and  there  by  the  poet  with  some  character  he  meets  in  the 
other  world.  But  interesting  as  some  of  these  talks  are  they 
do  not  possess  sufficient  importance  to  entitle  the  poet  to  the 
wide  repute  and  study  he  has  received.  It  will  be  salutary 
to  humanity  if  his  fame  .declines  and  the  Dante  worship  ceases. 
His  reputation  should  not  suffer  the  total  eclipse  that  it  ex- 
perienced in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  but 
civilization  will  profit  if  reactionary  dogmatists  will  find  that 
they  can  no  longer  appeal  to  his  authority  for  their  pernicious 
and  obsolete  views. 

The  Inferno  has  been  the  most  popular  of  the  three  divi- 
sions of  the  Divine  Comedy.  It  is  picturesque  and  vivid, 
2 


12  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

even  though  inhuman  and  exotic.  Dante  divides  his  hell  into 
nine  circles  whose  gates  are  guarded  by  demons  and  mytho- 
logical figures.  Each  circle  carries  within  it  punishments 
alleged  to  be  fitting  for  the  victims.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact 
the  poor  wretches  in  the  first  six  circles  are  not  criminals  and 
at  the  worst  are  merely  victims  of  venial  human  frailties. 
The  lustful,  the  gluttonous,  the  avaricious  and  the  prodigal, 
and  the  wrathful  are  punished  in  a  measure  out  of  proportion 
to  their  faults.  These  weak  people  should  not  have  been  put 
in  hell  at  all.  They  are  not  really  wicked  as  most  of  the  faults 
they  have  are  personal  and  do  not  inflict  extreme  pain  upon 
others.  Yet  the  poet  parcels  the  unfortunates  off  to  the 
second,  third,  fourth  and  fifth  circles  respectively,  and  makes 
them  suffer  severe  agonies.  The  carnal  sinners  shriek  and 
lament  as  they  are  smitten  by  hurricanes ;  the  gluttonous  howl 
like  dogs  because  of  the  hail  and  rain,  as  they  lie  on  the  ground, 
the  avaricious  and  prodigal  with  great  howls  roll  weights  by 
the  force  of  their  chests  and  the  wrathful  are  covered  with 
mud,  striking  and  mangling  one  another  piecemeal  with  their 
teeth.  Yet  all  of  us  have  the  instincts  of  these  sufferers  and 
we  do  not  like  to  see  our  fellow  creatures  in  such  travail.  We 
grow  indignant  at  Dante  because  he  devises  punishments  other 
than  those  nature  inflicts  upon  them  for  being  in  the  grip  of 
such  passions.  Is  not  dyspepsia  sufficient  punishment  for  the 
glutton  ?  Is  not  poverty  the  natural  sequence  of  prodigality  ? 
Is  not  a  debilitated  physical  condition  the  result  of  sensual 
practices?  And  does  not  anger  nearly  always  make  men 
commit  follies  that  they  later  regret?  We  do  not  need  any 
other  hell  invented  than  that  people  find  here. 

The  victims  in  the  first  and  the  sixth  circles  are  no  sinners 
at  all.     Those  in  Limbo,  the  first  circle,  happen  to  have  had 


DANTE:    THE  DIVINE  COMEDY  13 

the  misfortune  of  having  lived  before  Christ.  They  may  have 
led  exemplary  lives,  they  may  have  made  the  greatest  contri- 
butions to  human  thought  and  left  mankind  many  heritages, 
but  since  they  had  never  been  baptized  they  sigh  eternally. 
Here  are  the  great  Greek  philosophers  and  Eoman  poets.  It 
matters  little  how  noble  were  the  deeds  of  many  of  the  ancients, 
it  is  of  no  avail  how  profound  were  their  ideas;  these  people 
must  remain  in  hell  since  they  did  not  subscribe  to  the  theo- 
logical inanities  adopted  by  Dante.  Many  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment characters,  however,  escaped  hell  by  a  special  favor  of 
God.  Dante  has  been  severely  criticized  for  his  Limbo,  and 
the  injustice  of  this  creation  is  admitted. 

In  the  sixth  circle  the  poet  places  such  an  intellectual  man  as 
Epicurus,  because  he  held  the  soul  mortal  with  the  body. 
Heretics  are  here,  and  this  means  that  many  of  the  best  of  the 
world's  thinkers  lie  here  lamenting  and  baking  in  the  red  hot 
tombs.  Of  course  the  whole  conception  is  distinctly  medieval 
and  only  those  who  believe  that  a  liberal  minded  philosopher 
is  doomed  to  burn  in  hell  while  the  insipid  theologian  will  go 
to  heaven  will  derive  pleasure  in  reading  the  canto  describing 
this  circle.  Mention  should  be  made  that  Dante  puts  here 
the  father  of  his  intimate  poet  friend  Guido  Cavalcanti,  and 
hints  that  hell  awaits  the  latter  also.  But  heresy  is  no  longer 
a  crime ;  indeed  it  generally  argues  a  mind  freed  from  dogma 
and  superstition. 

In  the  lower  three  circles  where  the  violent,  the  fraudulent 
and  traitors  are  placed  we  have  more  horrible  punishments. 
When  one  recollects  what  terrible  pain  is  caused  temporarily 
by  a  bruise  or  a  burn,  he  will  strongly  condemn  a  poet  who 
invents  excruciating  physical  tortures  with  which  to  punish 


14  DANTE  AND  OTHEK  WANING  CLASSICS 

for  eternity;  he  will  rage  at  the  delight  that  the  poet  takes 
in  witnessing  the  frightful  calamities  the  victims  suffer. 

The  only  way  to  reduce  the  poet's  whole  scheme  of  punish- 
ments to  an  absurdity  is  merely  to  enumerate  the  punishments 
in  one  of  these  lower  circles  of  hell.  Let  us  take  the  eighth 
circle  called  Malebolge,  or  evil  pouches,  which  is  divided  into 
ten  budgets.  Here  lie  in  all  their  misery  those  who  practised 
deceit  or  fraud  of  some  kind.  Descriptions  of  their  horrible 
agonies  cover  fourteen  of  the  thirty-four  cantos  which  comprise 
the  Inferno. 

The  panderers  and  seducers  were  going  about  naked,  whipped 
by  horned  demons  and,  naturally,  under  the  circumstances, 
were  lifting  their  heels  continually.  False  flatterers  were 
whining,  puffing  their  nostrils  for  they  were  plunged  in  human 
excrement,  and  the  head  of  one  was  so  foul  that  he  was  un- 
recognizable. The  simonists  were  plunged  head  downwards 
with  their  feet  and  part  of  their  legs  extending  upwards  from 
circular  holes.  Their  soles  were  on  fire  and  caused  their 
joints  to  twitch.  The  false  prophets  were  walking  silently 
weeping,  but  their  heads  were  stuck  on  their  necks  backwards, 
so  that  their  tears  fell  upon  their  hips.  The  barrators  or 
corrupt  officials  were  boiling  in  a  lake  of  pitch,  and  whenever 
one  showed  himself,  devils  amused  themselves  by  pronging 
him.  They  drew  up  one  victim  and  clawed  and  flayed  him, 
till  he  fell  back  again  into  the  lake.  In  the  sixth  pouch  were 
hypocrites  walking  slowly  weeping ;  they  were  hooded  and  their 
eyes  were  covered  by  heavy  leaden  cloaks  gilded  on  the  out- 
side. In  the  seventh  pouch  were  horrible  serpents  among 
which  ran  thieves  whose  hands  were  tied  behind  by  snakes; 
these  fixed  their  tails  and  heads  through  the  men's  loins. 
Serpents  and  men  changed  one  into  another.  The  reptiles 


DANTE:    THE  DIVINE  COMEDY  15 

darted  at  the  robbers,  interwined  with  them  and  thus  the 
transformations  went  on  constantly.  The  fraudulent  coun- 
sellors were  enwrapped  by  flickering  flames  of  fire.  In  the 
next  pouch  were  the  sowers  of  discord  and  schism.  Poor 
Mahomet  was  cleft  all  the  way  down  the  belly  with  his  bowels 
hanging  out ;  another  man  was  cleft  from  chin  to  forelock  and 
as  he  walked  around  his  wounds  were  closed  up  till  a  devil 
opened  them  again  with  a  sword.  Another  had  his  hands 
chopped  off  and  he  smeared  his  face  with  blood.  Still  another 
carried  his  own  head  in  his  hands  by  the  hair  as  a  lantern 
and  lifted  it  in  the  air  and  spoke  from  it.  In  the  tenth  pouch 
were  alchemists,  false  personators  and  other  falsifiers.  There 
was  a  horrible  stench  here;  two  shades  were  leaning  against 
each  other  and  scratching  off  each  other's  scabs. 

Dante  has  however  devised  even  more  unique  and  cruel 
punishments  than  these.  Among  the  traitors  in  the  ninth 
circle  we  have  Count  Ugolino  whose  head  was  frozen  to  that 
of  an  archbishop,  which  the  Count  was  gnawing  and  devouring 
at  the  nape.  Then  conceive  Lucifer  sticking  half-way  out  of 
the  ice  with  three  immense  faces,  black,  yellowish-white  and 
red,  weeping  with  six  eyes,  while  tears  and  bloody  drivel  were 
trickling  over  his  three  chins.  Beneath  each  face  came  forth 
two  wings  larger  than  a  ship's  sail,  which  the  fiend  was  flap- 
ping. In  his  mouth  he  chewed  three  other  traitors. 

To  all  this  we  might  say  cui  bono?  To  heap  horrors  on 
horrors,  to  conjure  up  such  loathsome  afflictions,  to  perpetrate 
such  fiendish  barbarities  is  evidence  of  vindictiveness  and 
cruelty  in  the  poet  and  we  begin  to  hate  him  more  than  we  do 
the  sinners.  It  is  sad  to  contemplate  that  Dante  even  believed 
in  the  reality  of  these  punishments  and  that  he  invented  them 
for  the  next  world  by  seeking  them  on  earth.  There  is  some- 


16  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

thing  rancorous,  something  malevolent  on  the  part  of  one 
to  make  a  list  of  crimes  and  inflict  upon  those  who  practise 
them  such  merciless  tortures.  To  an  age  which  even  seeks 
to  alleviate  the  pain  of  the  temporarily  imprisoned  the  malice 
of  a  man  who  punished  for  eternity  by  torture  is  all  the  more 
revolting. 

Yet  the  admirers  of  Dante  defend  these  punishments  on  the 
ground  that  they  are  the  logical  retributions  brought  upon  the 
victims,  not  by  Dante,  but  by  the  crimes  themselves.  He  is 
supposed  to  make  the  penalty  fit  the  crime.  The  suffering  is 
said  to  be  the  fulfilment  in  the  next  world  of  what  has  begun 
here;  the  hell  depicted  is  alleged  to  be  in  man's  own  heart. 

But  where  is  the  connection  between  the  dripping  bowels 
of  Mahomet  and  the  fact  that  he  founded  a  religion  which 
has  millions  of  adherents  but  does  not  meet  with  the  poet's 
approval?  There  is  no  ingenuity  in  punishing  the  man  who 
carried  his  head  in  his  hand  like  a  lantern,  by  separating  his 
brain  from  his  trunk,  because  he  once  separated  a  father  from 
a  son.  There  is  no  reason  for  punishing  traitors  by  ice  because 
of  their  coldness,  any  more  than  in  making  heretics  subject 
to  fire  in  accordance  with  the  medieval  tradition.  The  conse- 
quence of  robbery  is  not  shown  by  making  thieves  steal  the 
bodies  of  serpents.  There  is  no  relation  between  the  corrup- 
tion of  barrators  and  the  lakes  of  pitch  into  which  they  are 
plunged.  The  lesson  that  sin  carries  its  own  damnation  with 
it  is  not  shown  by  depicting  gluttons  torn  to  pieces  by  a  three- 
headed  dog,  amidst  falling  hail.  And  we  must  admit  that 
some  sins  like  usury  never  carry  any  evil  consequences  for 
the  usurer,  but  should  be  avoided  simply  because  an  undue 
advantage  is  taken  of  a  fellow  creature.  Other  sins  like  defi- 


DANTE:    THE  DIVIXE  COMEDY  17 

ance  of  God  are  purely  imaginary  on  the  poet's  part;  one 
might  as  well  defy  the  law  of  the  conservation  of  energy. 

It  is  also  claimed  in  defense  of  the  poet  that  his  age  needed 
revolting  images  to  convey  moral  lessons  and  that  he  saw  his 
own  thoughts  transformed  into  real  though  horrible  pictures. 
But  this  will  not  extenuate  the  matter.  For  us  such  images 
offer  little  of  any  value.  They  arouse  our  smile  often  when 
meant  to  awaken  our  terror.  This  method  of  teaching  a  moral 
lesson  is  extinct  and  authors  to-day  give  us  more  effective  pic- 
tures of  the  evils  caused  by  certain  vices.  The  consequences  of 
avarice,  drunkenness,  seduction  and  adultery  have  been  shown 
more  effectively  in  some  of  the  novels  of  the  nineteenth  century 
than  in  Dante's  poem.  No  one  expects  these  vices  and  crimes 
to  be  extinguished  by  literature;  and  our  modern  writers  are 
often  greater  artists  because  they  are  interested  in  studying 
the  sinner  and  depicting  his  emotions  than  in  pointing  directly 
a  moral,  as  Dante  does.  The  fact  that  Dante  used  these 
revolting  images  renders  him  of  less  artistic  value  to  us,  nor 
should  we  forget  that  he  believed  in  the  reality  of  his  images. 

Dante  has  not  succeeded  in  showing  that  a  man  is  punished 
by  that  wherewith  he  sins.  He  has  simply  run  the  gamut  of 
the  most  fiendish  sufferings  and  distributed  them  among  some 
sinners.  He  has  deliberately  searched  for  instruments  inimi- 
cal and  deadly  to  the  body  and  to  life  and  has  employed  them 
upon  poor  wretches,  chiefly  Italians  of  his  age.  We  hold  our 
nostrils  as  we  read;  we  cover  up  our  ears;  we  hide  our  eyes. 
Did  one  ever  before  see  brought  together  such  stinking  odors, 
filth,  excrement,  blood,  mutilated  bodies,  agonizing  shrieks, 
mythical  monsters  ? 

Dante  punishes  his  sinners  for  one  offence  only,  although 
most  people  are  guilty  of  several  sins.  Thus  there  are  traitors 


18  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

in  the  ninth  circle  who,  having  also  committed  murder,  should 
be  in  the  stream  of  boiling  blood  in  the  seventh  circle.  But 
it  would  be  rather  difficult  to  have  a  man  in  several  circles 
of  hell  at  the  same  time,  so  the  poet  picks  out  the  worst  crime 
and  punishes  him  for  that  alone.  There  have  been  people  who 
were  guilty  of  almost  all  the  sins  and  crimes  that  Dante  men- 
tions, though  it  is  hardly  likely  that  there  were  many  who.  were 
free  from  a  single  one  of  the  vices  punished  in  hell.  Had  the 
poet  known  all  the  details  of  the  lives  of  his  saints  in  heaven, 
he  would  have  found  that  most  of  them  also  could  have  been 
placed  in  some  circle  in  the  nether  regions.  Men  cannot 
really  be  ticketed  off  and  labelled  with  some  sin;  most  folk 
have  tendencies  to  several  faults.  Dante's  whole  scheme  of 
punishment  is  unfair.  Hypocrites  and  magicians,  thieves 
and  flatterers  are  punished  more  severely  than  murderers  who 
are  placed  in  a  circle  above  them  in  hell.  According  to  Dante 
usurers  are  more  wicked  than  adulterers,  magicians  more 
deserving  of  chastisement  than  degenerate  perverts.  We  have 
Caesar  among  the  virtuous  heathen  in  the  first  circle,  though 
we  know  he  also  belongs  among  the  carnal  sinners  with  Cleo- 
patra. The  poet  is  cruel  to  suicides  who  ought  rather  to  be 
pitied;  he  is  lenient  to  the  contemptible  Paris  who  stole 
another  man's  wife  and  caused  a  great  war. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  we  all  belong  simultaneously  to  the  hell 
and  the  heaven  of  Dante.  If  I  have  the  fault  of  being  a 
glutton  and  am  nevertheless  a  just  man,  should  I  be  placed 
in  the  third  circle  of  hell  and  no  attention  paid  to  the  virtue 
which  would  entitle  me  to  a  place  in  heaven?  Should  not 
my  noble  quality  of  that  rare  virtue  justice  make  the  poet 
lenient  to  my  venial  fault  of  prodigality?  There  is  not  a 
man  who  is  not  guilty  of  some  sin,  there  is  not  one  who  does- 


DANTE:    THE  DIVINE  COMEDY  19 

not  possess  some  virtues.  Great  deeds  and  a  noble  character 
can  wipe  out  the  memory  of  certain  sins;  the  commission 
of  some  crimes  can  never  atone  for  the  possession  of  some 
good  attributes.  We  may  pardon  a  kind  man  his  anger  but 
we  will  never  forgive  a  murderer  because  he  was  a  theo- 
logian or  a  fighter  for  the  cross.  The  final  judgment  to  be 
pronounced  upon  men  should  be  made  by  weighing  all  their 
good  and  evil  qualities.  We  often  are  content  to  see  a  man 
with  some  faults  provided  some  great  virtues  go  therewith. 

Then  Dante  does  not  think  of  studying  his  victims  and 
their  sins.  He  is  too  interested  in  railing  at  vices  to  pay 
attention  to  them  as  objects  of  research.  He  is  always  the 
moralist,  never  the  psychologist.  Unlike  Spinoza,  who  studied 
all  the  baser  emotions  disinterestedly,  he  could  not  analyze 
the  maladies  of  the  soul  without  uttering  the  harshest  rebukes. 
He  is  like  a  physician  who,  called  in  to  diagnose  and  cure  a 
disease,  would  spend  his  time  in  railing  at  the  patient  instead, 
for  becoming  sick. 

So  Dante  condemns  everything  and  everybody,  kings,  poets, 
popes,  friends,  statesmen  and  even  mythical  creatures  of 
antiquity.  He  curses  cities  and  piles  the  most  vituperative 
epithets  upon  them.  He  tells  Pistoia  to  decree  to  make  ashes 
of  herself;  he  invites  Florence  to  rejoice  because  her  name  is 
spread  in  hell  and  says  that  if  the  calamities  which  her  enemies 
crave  for  her  befell  her  it  would  not  be  too  soon.  He  hopes 
the  Arno  Eiver  may  drown  every  person  in  Pisa.  He  refers 
to  the  same  river  in  his  Purgatorio  where  he  describes  its 
course  through  towns  which  are  referred  to  as  the  dens  of  ani- 
mals. The  river  flows  past  the  abodes  of  foul  hogs,  curs, 
wolves  and  foxes  by  which  are  meant  the  cities  of  Casentino, 


20  DANTE  AND  OTHEE  WANING  CLASSICS 

Arezzo,  Florence  and  Pisa  respectively.  As  for  the  Genoese, 
he  asks  why  they  are  not  scattered  from  the  world. 

One  sees  examples  of  his  cruelty  in  the  way  he  treats  some 
of  the  unfortunates  in  hell.  He  asks  Virgil  to  have  the  cruel 
Filippo  Argenti  soused  in  the  broth  of  filth  in  the  fifth  circle, 
and  when  the  wish  is  gratified  he  thanks  God  therefor.  Virgil 
approves  of  Dante's  attitude  and  himself  says  to  the  wretch, 
"  away  there  with  the  other  dog."  Dante  remarks  on  another 
occasion,  when  a  serpent  coils  himself  about  the  neck  of  a 
blaspheming  thief,  "  from  that  time  forth  the  serpents  were 
my  friends."  But  Dante's  wrath  exercises  itself  especially 
on  two  traitors.  He  pulls  a  tuft  of  hair  out  of  the  head  of 
one  of  them  in  order  to  make  him  reveal  his  identity.  This 
was  the  infamous  traitor  Bocca  degli  Abati,  who  was  respon- 
sible for  the  defeat  of  the  Guelphs  of  Florence.  The  other 
instance  of  the  poet's  reprehensible  conduct  is  in  his  treatment 
of  Friar  Alberigo,  who  killed  his  own  brother  and  nephew. 
This  traitor  begged  the  poet  to  lift  his  frozen  eyelids  so  that 
he  might  weep  a  little  and  ease  his  woe.  The  poet  promised 
to  do  so  if  the  friar  would  tell  his  name.  When  Alberigo  did 
so,  Dante  broke  his  promise,  saying  that  to  be  churlish  to  him 
was  courtesy. 

Dante  makes  even  Virgil  brutal  and  has  him  quote  from 
Aquinas  some  inhuman  statements.  When  Dante  wept  at 
the  sufferings  of  the  soothsayers,  Virgil  tells  him  that  he 
should  pity  no  one  in  hell,  that  a  man  is  a  criminal  who  is 
moved  by  compassion  at  the  judgments  of  God,  no  matter  how 
cruel  they  are. 

Most  of  the  characters  in  hell  however  are  Florentines  and 
the  poet  revenged  himself  on  his  enemies  by  putting  them 
here.  He  has  been  severely  censured  for  sending  his  master 


DANTE:    THE  DIVINE  COMEDY  21 

and  teacher  Brunette  Latini  to  the  circle  where  degenerates 
were  punished.  Dante  is  bitter  against  the  sin  of  ingratitude, 
yet  what  worse  ingratitude  do  we  find  than  his  conduct  here  ? 
He  is  aroused  by  sorrow,  but  he  might  have  kept  silent  on  the 
score  of  his  teacher's  sin.  The  episode  is  one  of  the  finer  ones 
of  the  Inferno  and  is  very  touching.  If  a  man  remembers 
even  his  friends  in  his  scheme  of  punishment  we  may  expect 
little  mercy  from  him  for  his  enemies.  And  many  of  the 
characters  in  hell  are  obscure  people  of  whom  history  makes 
no  mention.  The  folly  of  the  poet's  scheme  may  be  seen  if 
we  were  to  imagine  some  man  in  public  life  to-day  placing 
many  of  his  contemporaries  in  hell.  Conceive  of  a  poet  con- 
signing American  presidents,  poets,  generals  and  statesmen  to 
the  lower  regions. 

One  of  the  artistic  weaknesses  of  the  Inferno  is  the  intro- 
duction of  monsters  and  demons  in  hell,  in  some  cases  to  take 
part  in  the  punishment  of  the  victims.  Commentators  find 
allegoric  significance  in  the  poet's  choice  of  mythical  creatures, 
but  it  is  generally  conceded  that  bad  taste  was  displayed  in 
the  choice.  We  have  Charon,  who  had  about  his  eyes  wheels 
of  flame,  ferrying  the  damned  souls  across  the  Acheron; 
Minos,  the  judge  who  girded  himself  with  his  tail  as  many 
times  as  the  grade  he  willed  that  the  damned  be  sent  down  to 
hell ;  Cerberus,  with  three  heads,  red  eyes,  a  greasy  black  beard, 
a  big  belly,  barking  and  rending  the  gluttons.  We  have  the 
hideous  Furies  with  serpents  for  hair  and  the  human-faced 
Harpies  with  their  feathered  bellies.  There  is  the  Minotaur 
Bull  and  the  serpent-bodied  man-faced  Ceryon.  Two  of  the 
most  preposterous  conceptions  of  the  poet  are  in  his  making 
the  Centaurs  shoot  with  arrows  at  the  murderers  in  the  river 
of  blood,  and  in  his  account  of  the  sport  in  which  the  demons 


22  DANTE  AND  OTHEE  WANING  CLASSICS 

indulged  by  prodding  the  barrators  in  the  boiling  pitch. 
The  last  monster  who  appears  is  Lucifer  himself  and  he  is  the 
victim  of  one  of  the  punishments.  His  body  is  about  fifteen 
hundred  feet  long  and  his  haunches  are  surmounted  by  the 
poets  who  thus  enter  purgatory. . 

But  fortunately  there  is  some  merit  in  the  Inferno  and 
this  is  due  to  a  half  dozen  or  more  episodes.  These  show 
pathos,  sorrow,  tragedy  of  genuine  human  interest  and  possess 
artistic  value.  The  most  famous  of  them  all  is  the  sad  story 
of  Francesca  da  Eimini,  a  story  that  has  been  used  by  other 
poets  as  themes  for  drama  and  poems.  Deserving  almost 
equal  fame  is  the  celebrated  tale  by  Count  Ugolino  of  the 
starvation  of  his  sons.  The  story  moves  us  with  more  terror 
than  the  description  of  the  punishments  in  the  lowest  circle 
where  the  tale  is  related.  Dante  had  command  of  the  art  of 
making  our  flesh  creep  by  relating  a  true  tale ;  he  did  not  need 
to  contrive  horrible  tortures. 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  discover  these  little  tales  here  and  there 
and  we  will  mention  them.  There  is  something  pitiful  about 
the  suicide  of  Pier  delle  Vigne,  a  poet  who  killed  himself 
because  his  eyes  were  put  out;  instead  of  seeking  for  more  of 
his  brief  but  sad  tale,  Dante  and  Virgil  ask  him  to  tell  them 
whether  the  soul  is  ever  loosed  from  the  tree,  into  which  every 
suicide  has  been  changed.  The  meeting  of  Dante  with  Pope 
Nicholas  III  is  fine,  because  of  the  irony  in  the  exclamation 
of  the  simonist  pope  when  he  mistook  the  poet  for  the  then 
living  Pope  Boniface  who  was  expected  here.  We  are  moved 
by  the  description  of  his  thirst  which  the  counterfeiter  Mas- 
ter Adam  gives  to  his  visitors;  we  read  again  with  interest 
the  story  of  his  wanderings  which  that  fraudulent  counsellor 
Ulysses  tells;  we  follow  the  story  of  Guido  de  Montefeltro  as 


DANTE:    THE  DIVINE  COMEDY  23 

he  relates  how  he  told  Pope  Boniface  not  to  keep  a  promise, 
though  we  lose  the  sense  of  reality  in  his  tale  when  he  tells 
how  the  Black  Cherubim  snatched  him  from  St.  Francis  and 
carried  him  to  hell.  We  note  the  poet's  conversation  with 
Farinata,  in  the  circle  of  unbelievers,  about  the  battles  between 
the  Ghibellines  and  the  Guelphs,  but  the  conversation  relapses 
into  frivolity  when  the  poet  persuades  him  to  explain  why 
the  dead  can  foretell  the  futur.e  but  are  ignorant  of  the  present. 

Having  seen  Dante  as  a  painter  of  the  horrible,  let  us  con- 
sider him  as  a  religious  thinker  and  a  contemplator  of  ideal 
happiness.  We  shall  examine  his  Paradiso  which  some  critics 
regard  a?  the  most  profound  of  the  three  divisions  of  his  poem, 
although  it  has  been  the  least  popular.  Much  of  the  section 
is  nothing  more  than  theology  in  rhyme.  We  will  take  up 
the  second  section,  the  Purgaiono,  last. 

Dante  divides  his  heaven  into  ten  parts,  since  there  are 
different  orders  of  blessedness  for  no  other  reason  than  that 
it  so  pleases  God.  Seven  of  the  heavens  are  named  after  the 
sun,  the  moon  and  the  five  planets  then  known.  The  last 
three  are  those  of  the  fixed  stars,  the  crystalline  heaven  and 
the  empyrean.  These  abodes  are  inhabited  by  saints,  theo- 
logians, crusaders,  apostles  and  other  religious  folk.  Only 
three  of  the  regions  are  not  inhabited  by  the  specially  religious. 
These  are  the  heavens  of  Mercury,  Venus  and  Jupiter  which 
are  the  dwelling  places  of  followers  of  fame,  of  lovers  and  of 
righteous  kings  respectively. 

There  are  about  ten  cantos  that  treat  of  theology  alone,  while 
there  are  a  half  a  dozen  cantos  that  are  unadorned  biography 
and  history.  All  this  occupies  about  one-half  of  the  Paradiso 
while  the  rest  of  the  poem  consists  of  accounts  of  the  heavens 
and  of  the  curious  deeds  of  the  spirits  there.  Let  us  examine 


24  DANTE  AND  OTHEE  WANING  CLASSICS 

the  contents  of  some  of  these  theological  cantos ;  let  us  study 
some  of  the  representative  heavens,  such  as  those  of  the  sun 
and  of  Jupiter  where  the  theologians  and  righteous  kings 
respectively  dwell ;  let  us  also  traverse  the  highest  heaven,  the 
empyrean.  We  shall  carefully  go  through  the  historical  and 
biographical  cantos,  for  Dante  interests  us  most  when  he 
refers  to  this  earth.  We  shall  then  see  how  much  merit  the 
'Paradiso  contains. 

Dante  plunges  very  early  into  his  theological  and  historical 
discourses.  At  the  conclusion  of  the  very  first  canto,  we  have 
Beatrice's  discourse  on  the  ordaining  of  the  universe  by  Provi- 
dence. As  is  frequently  the  case  with  her,  it  is  an  explanation 
which  does  not  elucidate.  In  the  next  canto  she  gives  a  curious 
account  of  the  origin  of  the  spots  on  the  moon.  She  maintains 
that  the  diverse  virtues  of  God  acting  through  the  Angelic 
Intelligence,  shine  through  the  moon  diversely  and  hence 
create  the  distinction  between  light  and  darkness.  In  the 
third  'canto  she  shows  that  souls  do  not  go  to  the  stars,  as 
Plato  thought,  but  rather  to  the  empyrean;  she  then  proves 
to  her  own  satisfaction  that  there  is  no  injustice,  that  the  very 
fact  that  God's  justice  seems  unjust  to  mortal  eyes  is  argu- 
ment or  proof  of  faith.  She  also  sets  forth  the  doctrine  that 
people  who  have  good  intentions  when  forced  by  violence  of 
others  to  break  them  must  nevertheless  not  receive  credit  for 
their  virtue;  that  they  should  be  punished  for  a  wrong  they 
committed  through  no  fault  of  their  own.  The  viciousness 
of  Beatrice's  arguments  does  not  interest  us  so  much  as  the 
poet's  approval.  He  says  that  her  speech  so  overflows  him  that 
he  can  scarcely  thank  her  sufficiently,  and  that  the  intellect 
is  only  satisfied  when  it  is  illumed  by  the  truth  as  in  the  present 
instance.  Then  the  poet  wants  to  know  if  man  can  make 


DANTE:    THE  DIVINE  COMEDY  25 

satisfaction  for  broken  vows.  She  explains  that  a  vow  may 
be  changed  with  clerical  dispensation  if  the  matter  substi- 
tuted exceeds  in  worth  that  of  the  original  vow.  Then  follows 
a  canto  of  history,  the  story  of  the  growth  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  told  by  Justinian  in  the  planet  Mercury;  next  we 
have  Beatrice's  arid  discourse  on  redemption  and  then  the 
talk  by  Charles  Martel  in  the  planet  Venus  on  the  impossibility 
of  imperfection  in  the  universe  and  on  the  cause  of  variety  and 
diversity  everywhere. 

Thus  the  reader  has  traversed  eight  cantos  of  the  Paradiso 
and  the  only  bit  of  poetry  that  he  has  encountered  is  the  brief 
story  of  Piccarda  Donati  telling  how  she  was  forced  to  leave 
the  cloister  and  thus  break  her  vow.  Even  her  narrative  is 
ruined  by  theological  dogmas  when  she  explains  why  spirits 
in  the  lower  division  of  heaven  cannot  envy  those  in  the  higher 
ones ;  she  concludes  with  that  overrated  line  "  His  will  is  our 
peace." 

When  Justinian  tells  the  history  of  Rome  he  does  so  to 
illustrate  the  poet's  belief  that  the  Roman  Empire  existed 
by  Divine  Right  because  Christ,  was  born  and  died  to  save 
mankind  during  the  supremacy  of  the  Empire.  It  was  by 
the  authority  of  Rome  that  Christ  died  and  saved  man;  all 
this  was  especially  ordained  by  God.  God  made  Rome  the 
mistress  of  the  world  so  as  to  save  us  all.  The  only  reason 
that  God  made  Rome  go  through  its  period  of  history  was  it 
should  reach  the  times  of  Tiberius  and  of  Titus,  as  in  the 
reign  of  the  former  Christ  was  crucified  and  in  the  reign  of 
the  latter  this  crucifixion  was  avenged  upon  the  Jews  in  the 
destruction  of  their  temple.  God  was  happy  at  both  events, 
he  ordained  and  waited  for  the  death  of  His  son  and  yet  He 
punished  the  Jews  for  causing  it;  and  He  made  the  Roman 


26  DANTE  AND  OTHEK  WANING  CLASSICS 

Empire  prosper  so  as  to  bring  all  this  about.  When  Justinian 
is  not  advancing  this  most  amazing  and  ludicrous  theory  he 
gives  us  dry  history. 

But  Justinian's  historical  tale  becomes  the  text  for  an 
elaborate  and  hopeless  discourse  by  Beatrice  on  redemption. 
The  substance  of  it  was  of  great  importance  to  the  poet  and 
for  that  matter  still  is  to  many  people.  She  explains  to  the 
poet  why  God  wanted  and  expected  the  Jews  to  crucify  Jesus. 
It  was  because  Adam's  original  disobedience  was  so  great  that 
no  amount  of  human  humility  could  atone  for  it,  so  God  Him- 
self had  to  take  the  burden  on  his  shoulders.  Adam's  sin 
was  atoned  for  by  Christ's  death;  God's  son  himself  had  to 
die  for  it.  Man  was  created  directly  from  God  and  hence 
needed  a  God  to  die  for  him.  Another  futile  discourse  of 
Beatrice  is  the  one  about  the  creation  and  the  nature  of 
angels.  We  learn  that  the  angels  are  pure  form,  that  they 
are  infinite,  that  no  two  are  of  the  same  species,  etc.  She 
even  appeals  to  the  authority  of  Jerome  and  then  denounces 
teachers  who  do  not  agree  with  her  absurd  views.  She  attacks 
traffic  in  indulgences  though  not  indulgences  themselves. 

NOT  should  mention  be  omitted  of  the  examination  to  which 
the  poet  was  subjected  by  three  of  the  saints  in  faith,  hope 
and  charity.  The  poet's  views  of  faith  are  worthy  of  com- 
ment. Faith  according  to  the  poet  is  belief  in  something 
that  cannot  be  proved;  it  is  supported  by  its  own  substance 
and  hence  is  called  evidence  also.  The  proof  of  faith  that  we 
have  is  the  Bible  which  is  divinely  inspired.  The  miracles 
prove  that  the  Holy  Writ  is  true,  even  though  we  know  of 
them  through  it.  But  because  the  conversion  of  the  world 
to  Christianity  without  miracles  would  have  been  a  greater 
miracle  than  any  in  the  Scriptures,  the  Bible  must  be  true. 


DANTE:    THE  DIVINE  COMEDY  27 

After  this  convincing  and  irrefutable  argument  the  poet  tells 
us  that  his  faith  is  belief  in  a  God  and  in  the  three  eternal 
persons  who  are  of  one  essence.  The  picture  of  St.  Peter 
examining  the  poet  and  appearing  as  one  of  the  flaming  spheres 
upon  fixed  poles  and  revolving  as  within  the  fittings  of  clocks 
and  then  encircling  the  poet  thrice  because  he  was  so  well 
pleased  with  the  answers  is  undignified. 

There  can  be  very  little  doubt  that  among  the  most  ludi- 
crous portions  of  the  poem  is  the  heaven  of  the  sun,  where  the 
theologians  were.  The  poet  commences  with  a  discourse  on 
astrolog}r;  he  becomes  confused,  as  does  also  the  reader,  and 
he  then  throws  aside  his  task,  saying,  "  Henceforth  feed  thy- 
self." The  authors  of  theological  books  are  made  to  perform 
amusing  feats  not  in  keeping  with  the  seriousness  of  their 
calling  on  earth.  They  wheel  around  the  poet  and  Beatrice 
thrice  in  the  form  of  shining  lights.  Thomas  Aquinas  names 
them  and  they  wheel  around  again  singing  and  keeping  time. 
They  cease  and  revolve  again.  Meanwhile  an  inner  circle  of 
lights,  who  are  the  spirits  of  some  other  obscure  theologians 
enter  upon  their  gyrations,  matching  motion  with  motion, 
song  with  song.  They  danced,  exalted  and  sang  together. 
The  effect  was  as  if  one  ring  of  brilliant  stars  revolved  around 
another.  They  sang  not  of  Bacchus  and  Paean  but  of  three 
in  one.  They  would  occasionally  cease,  to  give  St.  Thomas 
or  some  one  else  an  opportunity  to  talk. 

These  theologians  were  all  authors  of  books  full  of  false 
speculation,  which  are  unread  to-day.  For  some  reason  or 
other  Solomon  is  one  of  the  theologians,  although  because  of 
his  amorousness  and  idolatry  he  should  have  been  in  hell. 

Thomas  Aquinas  is  the  first  spokesman  and  he  enters  upon 
the  following  important  problem.  Why  is  Solomon  not  as 
3 


28  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

wise  as  Adam  and  Jesus,  since  he  has  the  reputation  of  being 
the  wisest  of  men  ?  The  reason  is  he  was  not  created  imme- 
diately of  God  as  they  were.  St.  Thomas  then  goes  into  some 
unintelligible  and  meaningless  details  about  creation;  and 
concludes  that  after  all  Solomon  was  only  the  wisest  king. 
He  is  somewhat  confused  by  his  own  explanation,  grows  angry 
and  attacks  some  authors  who  did  not  agree  with  his  views, 
and  comments  on  the  vanity  of  human  judgment.  The  next 
equally  important  problem  that  is  to  be  solved  is  the  follow- 
ing: When  the  resurrection  comes  how  will  the  eyes  of  the 
resurrected  bear  so  strong  a  light  as  that  in  which  the  spirits 
are  now  clothed?  The  spirits  dance  and  rejoice  that  the 
question  was  raised.  It  was  so  intricate  and  difficult  that 
they  asked  Solomon  to  answer  it.  Solomon  answers  that  at 
the  resurrection  the  body  will  receive  new  glory  and  our 
power  of  vision  will  increase.  An  amen  greets  the  solution, 
and  the  spirits  even  show  a  desire  to  have  their  bodies  back. 
These  are  examples  of  futile  medieval  problems  that  the  poet 
seriously  entertained.  It  must  be  understood  also  that  he 
gave  full  faith  to  these  explanations. 

What  a  hopelessly  clouded  brain  Dante  had !  When  the 
great  pioneers  of  the  Eenaissance  were  teaching  the  people 
liber?x  views  he  was  trying  to  make  them  penetrate  deeper 
into  darkness.  He  ignored  the  heritages  of  the  times;  he 
turned  away  from  their  splendors  and  set  to  verse  notions 
that  were  vapid  and  paltry.  He  hated  original  writers,  and 
was  the  great  foe  of  individualism.  He  bowed  abjectly  before 
authority. 

In  the  heaven  of  the  sun  the  lives  of  St.  Francis  and  St. 
Dominic  are  recited.  St.  Thomas  tells  of  St.  Francis's  pov- 
erty, dwells  on  some  details  of  his  life  and  describes  his  alle- 


DANTE:    THE  DIVINE  COMEDY  29 

gorical  marriage  to  the  Lady  Poverty.  The  narrative  con- 
cludes with  an  outburst  against  ecclesiastical  abuses.  The 
life  of  St.  Dominic  is  narrated  by  another  saint  who  tells  of 
his  exploits,  of  his  wedding  to  faith  and  of  his  smiting  heret- 
ical stocks  with  most  vigor  where  the  resistance  was  greatest ; 
the  tale  ends  with  an  attack  on  the  backsliders  in  religion. 
Both  of  these  biographies  might  have  been  contributed  to  a 
dictionary;  they  are  really  space  fillers  here.  The  characters 
do  not  interest  us,  at  least  as  examples  to  emulate,  though  all 
the  world  has  loved  St.  Francis. 

It  should  be  added  that  in  the  various  declamations  against 
the  church  and  popes  and  religious  practises,  the  poet  simply 
rails  at  some  surface  abuses.  It  never  occurs  to  him  to  ques- 
tion the  whole  structure  of  the  supernatural  or  the  very  foun- 
dations of  institutions;  he  never  probes  deeply.  He  points 
out  flaws  here  and  there  but  he  does  not  apply  the  scalpel  to 
the  putrescence  beneath. 

The  conception  of  the  heaven  of  Jupiter,  the  abode  of  the 
righteous  kings,  is  probably  more  risible  than  that  of  the 
dwelling  place  of  the  theologians.  All  the  spirits  here  includ- 
ing King  David  know  Latin.  Some  of  them  shaped  them- 
selves into  letters  of  the  alphabet,  forming  a  brilliantly  lit 
sentence  in  Roman  letters.  They  formed,  while  flying  and 
singing,  the  words  from  the  Book  of  Proverbs  "  Diligite  jus- 
titiam  qui  judicatis  terram,"  "  Love  righteousness  ye  that  be 
judge  of  the  earth."  At  the  last  letter  M  the  lights  spread 
out  into  the  head  and  neck  of  an  eagle,  who  is  a  symbol  of 
monarchy  and  hence,  according  to  the  poet,  of  justice.  The 
eagle  sang  and  explained  to  him  that  Divine  Justice  is  beyond 
our  comprehension  and  should  be  taken  on  faith. 


30  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

The  eye  of  the  eagle  is  King  David ;  and  the  eyebrow  con- 
sists of  five  lights,  also  earthly  kings,  two  of  whom  are  pagans, 
Trajan  and  Khipeus  the  Trojan.  The  Roman  king  is  in 
heaven  because  he  became  alive  again  after  being  in  hell  and 
then  believed  in  Christ,  according  to  the  legend,  while  Rhipeus 
believed  in  redemption,  through  God's  special  grace. 

The  eagle  next  presents  to  itself  for  solution  a  plausible 
argument  against  Divine  Justice.  Where  is  the  justice  that 
condemns  a  man  who  was  born  a  thousand  miles  away  and 
never  heard  of  Christ,  through  no  fault  of  his  own?  Why 
should  he  not  be  saved  if  he  has  lived  a  righteous  life  ?  After 
calling  those  who  ask  such  questions,  earthly  animals  and 
gross  minds,  the  eagle  gives  an  answer  which  amounts  to 
this:  So  much  is  just  as  is  consonant  with  the  Primal  Will 
which  is  the  Supreme  Good.  Then  the  bird  names  some  unjust 
kings  and  calls  them  by  vile  epithets. 

As  we  see  this  eagle  of  brilliant  lights  we  can  scarcely 
resist  picturing  to  ourselves  a  bird  formed  of  electric  lights 
such  as  we  see  in  advertisements,  lighting  up  whenever  the 
reading  matter,  also  of  incandescent  lights,  goes  out  in  dark- 
ness. No  one  will  be  led  to  practise  justice  by  seeing  this 
awkwardly  conceived  eagle.  Most  certainly  the  poet  regards 
any  speculation  as  to  the  existence  of  Divine  Justice  as  a  great 
heresy.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  there  is  no  justice  in  nature, 
where  all  living  animals  feed  on  one  another,  where  suffering 
and  pain  are  common,  where  might  and  chicanery  usually 
triumph.  Justice  has  no  connection  with  religion  but  is  a 
convenient  arrangement  to  prevent  misery  among  men.  It 
springs  from  a  moral  sense  in  man  just  as  hatred  of  ugliness 
arises  from  an  aesthetic  sense.  It  evolved  with  other  senti- 
ments such  as  pity  and  fear,  in  the  natural  evolution  of  man 


DANTE:    THE  DIVINE  COMEDY  31 

from  his  savage  state.  The  conception  of  justice  shows  the 
general  moral  view-point  held  by  a  community  and  changes 
with  time  and  place.  To  nature,  our  conception  of  right 
means  nothing ;  she  takes  no  interest  in  the  fact  that  we  may 
follow  worthy  human  ideals  and  yet  suffer  therefor.  A  savage 
has  notions  of  justice  also;  one  could  no  more  expect  nature 
to  pay  tribute  to  them  than  to  our  own. 

Many  who  are  willing  to  concede  that  there  is  little  if  no 
literary  merit  in  any  of  the  parts  of  the  Paradiso  so  far 
referred  to,  find  it  however  in  two  other  sections,  first  in  those 
cantos  containing  the  story,  declamation  and  prophecy  of 
Dante's  ancestor  Cacciaguida  whom  the  poet  meets  in  Mars 
among  the  fighters  for  the  cross  and  secondly  in  the  con- 
cluding cantos  of  the  poem  where  the  empyrean  is  described. 

Of  the  episode  about  Dante's  ancestor,  it  may  be  said  that 
it  contains  those  oft  quoted  lines  prophesying  the  poet's  exile, 
lines  which  do  linger  in  the  reader's  memory :  "  Thou  shalt 
make  proof  how  the  bread  of  others  savors  of  salt,  and  how 
hard  a  path  is  the  descending  and  mounting  of  another's 
stairs.  And  that  which  will  weigh  heaviest  upon  thy 
shoulders  will  be  the  evil  and  senseless  company  which  thou 
wilt  fall  into  in  this  valley."  There  is  an  impassioned  para- 
graph where  the  old  soldier  contrasts  the  luxury  of  the  new 
Florence  with  the  simplicity  of  the  old,  and  we  like  his  parting 
advice  to  Dante  to  attack  severely.  But  there  are  too  many 
obscure  names  and  too  much  genealogy  and  history  which 
have  only  local  significance.  The  crusader  is  of  no  interest 
to  any  one  and  we  know  of  him  only  through  Dante;  he  is 
here  because  of  the  poet's  vanity.  Except  for  a  few  passages, 
the  episode  about  the  poet's  ancestry  is  out  of  place  in  the 
Paradiso. 


32  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

But  the  poet's  admirers  have  adulated  the  account  of  the 
empyrean.  The  chief  attribute  of  this  region  is  the  flood 
of  dazzling  light  that  exists  here ;  the  poet  lays  so  much  stress 
upon  this  that  our  eyes  become  blinded  and  we  want  a  little 
darkness.  There  is  the  river  of  light  in  which  the  saints  are 
mirrored.  It  becomes  a  vast  rose,  wherein  are  descending 
thousands  of  angels  like  a  swarm  of  bees,  their  faces  bathed 
in  flame,  their  wings  in  gold  and  their  forms  whiter  than 
snow.  Beatrice  soon  takes  a  place  along  with  Virgin  Mary 
and  some  of  the  women  mentioned  in  the  Bible,  such  as  Eachel 
and  Sarah.  There  are  places  for  saints  and  innocent  children; 
there  are  various  degrees  of  innocence  for  no  other  reason  than 
that  God  so  wills  it.  The  poet  through  prayer  of  St.  Bernard  to 
Virgin  Mary  obtains  grace,  and  soon  sees  God  Himself  and  the 
poem  ends.  He  makes  again  and  again  famous  addresses  to 
light  but  he  is  really  calling  darkness.  Every  one  reading 
the  poem  wonders  that  the  insignificant  Beatrice  and  the 
women  of  the  Old  Testament  who  had  no  particular  virtue, 
should  be  in  the  rose  in  the  highest  heaven  while  Aristotle  is 
in  hell. 

No  one  wants  to  be  in  this  rose,  if  this  is  the  highest  goal 
for  the  human  race.  This  place  is  not  for  heroes  or  thinkers 
or  benefactors  to  humanity.  The  poet  has  brought  together 
puerile  conceptions  that  do  not  appeal  to  us.  His  Beatrice 
is  indeed  theology.  As  an  ideal  of  women  she  is  absolutely 
extinct.  One  cannot  help  speculating  whether  she  has  any 
passions  at  all.  She  is  bloodless,  characterless  and  unreal. 
She  was  an  ideal  to  the  poet  and  we  sympathize  more  with 
his  account  of  her  in  his  Vita  Nuova,  for  there  she  appears  to 
be  a  live  woman.  But  here  she  irritates  and  repels  us. 


DANTE:    THE  DIVINE  COMEDY  33 

She  drives  the  poet  into  an  abyss  of  falsehood  instead  of  lead- 
ing him  to  knowledge. 

Let  us  now  return  to  the  second  section  of  the  poem. 

Dante's  Purgatory  is  a  mountain  that  arose  from  the  waters 
in  the  southern  hemisphere,  in  antipodes  to  Jerusalem  and 
was  forced  out  by  a  portion  of  the  earth  which  fled  when  Satan 
fell.  The  top  of  this  mountain  is  the  earthly  paradise,  while 
the  slope  is  divided  into  seven  ledges  for  the  purification  of 
sinners. 

The  earthly  paradise  is  described  in  the  last  cantos  of  the 
Purgatorio.  There  is  a  lengthy  description  here  of  the  pro- 
cession of  the  chariot  representing  the  church.  This  is  drawn 
by  a  griffon,  half  eagle  and  half  lion,  who  symbolises  Christ. 
Beatrice  sits  on  the  left  hand  border  of  the  chariot.  The 
griffon  ties  his  car  to  the  mystic  tree  which  was  at  first  barren 
and  now  blossoms  forth.  Then  an  eagle  descends  upon  the 
chariot,  which  is  also  attacked  by  a  dragon,  and  we  see  seven 
heads  with  horns,  and  a  harlot  and  giant  kissing  each  other; 
finally  the  giant  drags  the  wagon  off  into  the  woods.  The 
eagle  is  representative  of  sins  of  the  empire,  the  dragon  carry- 
ing off  part  of  the  car  represents  a  schism  in  the  church,  the 
seven  horned  heads  are  the  deadly  sins,  the  harlot  and  giant 
are  the  pope  and  the  king  of  France.  There  are  other  symbols ; 
there  are  twenty-four  elders  representing  the  books  of  the 
Old  Testament,  and  winged  creatures  behind  them  who  stand 
for  the  four  evangelists :  there  are  ladies  typifying  the  virtues. 
We  find  little  to  move  us  in  his  account  of  the  procession; 
moreover  Dante  imitates  the  Apocalypse  too  closely. 

The  first  meeting  of  the  poet  with  Beatrice  displeases  the 
reader.  She  rebukes  him  for  having  paid  attention  formerly 
to  other  women,  and  whether  the  reference  is  to  Dante's 


34  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

amorous  affairs  or  to  his  backsliding  from  theology,  she 
annoys  us  with  her  jealousy  and  intolerance.  We  also  have 
her  prophecy  about  the  mysterious  DXV,  515,  who  will  save 
the  country.  Then  there  is  an  account  of  the  geography  of 
the  earthly  paradise,  of  the  origin  of  the  winds  here  and  of 
the  sources  of  the  two  streams  Lethe  and  Eunoe. 

Let  us  now  examine  the  region  called  ante-purgatory  and 
then  some  of  the  ledges  of  purgatory  proper. 

There  are  pictures  and  scenes  in  his  Purgatorio  that  are 
among  the  best  Dante  wrote,  though  they  are  few,  hut  the 
underlying  idea  of  purgatory  is  as  pernicious  and  absurd  as 
most  of  his  other  ideas.  The  application  of  his  theory  of 
repentance  produces  strange  effects.  A  great  criminal  repents 
on  his  death-bed  or  acknowledges  regrets  for  his  crime  and  he 
is  consigned  to  purgator)1,  which  means  that  he  will  ultimately 
reach  heaven.  A  venial  sinner  like  some  wrathful  or  glutton- 
ous men,  may  be  accidentally  killed  or  die  suddenly  and  have 
had  no  opportunity  to  repent  and  he  becomes  a  suffering 
denizen  of  hell  for  eternity. 

It  is  easy  to  repent,  but  that  does  not  undo  the  consequences 
of  our  sin.  Most  murderers  regret  their  deeds  after  killing 
but  that  does  not  restore  life  to  the  victim,  or  assuage  the 
agonies  of  the  relatives  and  friends.  Those  who  maim,  ravish, 
betray  can  usually  make  no  reparation  for  the  wrongs  done 
and  hence  their  repentance  is  of  little  avail.  Nor  does  a 
man's  disposition  usually  become  changed  by  repentance. 
Place  him  in  the  same  situation  and  he  will  generally  do  the 
same  deeds  again. 

In  ante-purgatory  are  the  souls  of  those  who  died  in  the 
contumacy  of  the  church,  the  negligent  who  postponed  repent- 
ance to  the  last  hour,  spirits  who  delayed  repentance  and  met 


DANTE:    THE  DIVISTE  COMEDY  35 

with  death  by  violence  but  died  repentant,  and  princes  who 
had  been  negligent  of  salvation.  These  must  wait  various 
periods  of  time  before  they  can  get  into  purgatory  proper; 
these  periods  of  time  may  be  shortened  by  the  prayers  of  the 
good  on  earth.  A  mere  accident  might  have  prevented  repent- 
ance and  the  repentants  might  have  been  in  hell.  The  negli- 
gent who  postponed  repentance  to  the  last  hour,  might  have 
been  suddenly  killed  and  thus  their  chances  of  salvation  would 
have  been  lost.  Then  the  doctrine  that  the  prayers  of  good 
people  will  shorten  the  periods  of  suffering  in  ante-purgatory 
and  purgatory  proper  is  indefensible. 

The  punishments  of  these  who  repented  of  the  seven  deadly 
sins  are  also  cruel  though  not  as  much  so  as  those  in  hell. 
The  proud  were  going  under  their  load,  more  or  less  burdened 
and  weary;  the  envious  were  covered  with  coarse  hair-cloth, 
and  iron  wires  pierced  their  eyelids;  the  wrathful  wandered 
about  in  dense  smoke;  the  slothful  were  running  and  crying 
out  examples  of  diligence;  the  avaricious  were  weeping,  lying 
on  the  earth  turned  downwards;  the  gluttons  were  compelled 
to  gaze  at  fine  apple  trees  whose  fruit  they  could  not  pluck, 
and  hence  were  hollow-eyed,  pallid,  and  wasted;  while  the 
lustful  spirits  moved  in  flames  of  fire.  The  repentant  sinners 
were  all  compelled  to  recite  verses  and  were  shown  examples 
of  those  who  practised  different  conduct  from  their  own.  As 
the  poet  ascended  the  ledges  each  of  the  seven  p's  which  an 
angel  had  traced  on  his  forehead  dropped  off. 

There  are  also  scientific  and  theological  discourses  in  the 
Purgatorio,  though  not  as  numerous  as  those  in  the  Paradiso. 
We  have  the  lengthy  discourse  of  the  poet  Statius  in  the  seventh 
ledge,  on  generation,  on  the  infusion  of  the  soul  in  the  body 
and  his  explanation  as  to  why  the  spirits  of  the  gluttons  are 


36 

lean;  there  are  discourses  by  Marco  Lombardo  on  free-will 
and  the  corruption  of  the  world,  and  by  Virgil  on  the  classifi- 
cation of  the  sins  and  on  free-will.  Statius's  account  of  the 
trembling  of  the  mountain  which  is  due  to  the  rising  of  a  pure 
soul  to  heaven  is  another  one  of  the  risible  follies  that  crowd 
Dante's  poem. 

Nevertheless  the  Purgatorio  contains  more  human  scenes 
and  finer  pictures  than  either  of  the  other  two  portions  of  the 
poem.  It  is  better  literature  and  has  several  episodes  that 
deserve  to  be  permanently  read  for  their  beauty.  It  also  con- 
tains the  poet's  famous  impassioned  invective  against  Italy. 
There  is  the  celebrated  picture  of  historical  figures  who  were 
guilty  of  pride,  and  of  their  punishment.  The  poet  makes 
the  passage  effective  by  his  vivid  impressionistic  touches.  We 
again  see  Niobe  in  tears,  Saul  upon  his  sword,  and  Troy  in 
ashes.  There  are  also  examples  taken  from  history  of  humility 
engraven  in  the  rock.  We  again  see  David  dancing  before  the 
ark,  and  Trajan  promising  to  help  the  widow  avenge  her  slain 
son.  We  also  like  the  conversation  between  the  poet  and 
Oderisi  of  Gubio,  a  votary  of  the  art  of  illumination.  The 
description  of  the  ledge  of  pride  is  quite  successful,  even 
though  diatribes  in  literature  against  the  deadly  sins  are 
obsolete. 

We  are  also  interested  in  listening  to  Casella  singing  a 
canzone  of  Dante  at  the  latter's  request ;  we  admire  the  account 
of  the  meeting  of  Statius  with  Virgil  and  the  fine  tribute  paid 
to  him.  We  rejoice  in  the  meeting  of  other  poets  like  Sordello 
and  Guinicelli  with  the  author  of  the  J^neid.  The  memory 
of  his  wife  Nella  which  moves  Forese  Donati  stirs  us  and  we 
revel  in  his  attack  on  the  Florentine  women. 


DANTE:    THE  DIVINE  COMEDY  37 

But  a  poem  must  be  judged  as  a  whole,  and  the  central  idea 
behind  it ;  the  philosophy  to  be  gathered  from  it  must  be  con- 
sidered. As  a  poem  with  a  purpose,  the  Divine  Comedy  is  a 
failure  not  only  because  of  its  inability  of  conviction,  but 
because  of  its  perverted  view-point  and  its  emphasis  on  the 
trivial.  The  poet  seeks  to  make  us  more  moral  chiefly  through 
theology.  Besides  being  free  from  sin  and  crime,  we  must, 
according  to  his  view,  subscribe  to  the  belief  in  the  trinity,  in 
original  sin,  in  the  atonement,  in  the  miracles  of  the  Bible 
and  in  the  divine  right  of  the  pope.  We  must  be  baptized, 
we  must  not  have  the  slightest  doubt  of  the  efficacy  and  power 
of  prayer,  we  must  say  mass,  we  must  not  question  belief  in 
resurrection.  Satan  must  be  a  real  creature  to  us.  The  saints 
must  be  regarded  as  still  working  miracles ;  the  angels  must  be 
actual  denizens  of  the  skies  in  whom  we  must  believe. 

The  poem  makes  re-echo  in  our  ears  those  words  repeated  in 
all  religious  books  for  the  last  two  thousand  years — "sin," 
"  repentance,"  "  beatification/'  In  fact  these  words  sum  up 
the  whole  intent  of  the  poem.  We  must  be  conscious  of  our 
sins,  we  must  repent  of  them  and  thus  attain  beatification. 
Dante  wishes  to  make  us  be  bowed  down  more  heavily  by  the 
burden  of  our  sins;  he  persuades  us  to  search  them  out;  he 
wants  us  to  be  united  with  God,  which  really  means  to  be 
attached  to  the  dogma  of  a  creed.  He  slanders  human  nature 
most  foully  and  seeks  to  impose  upon  us  imaginary  obliga- 
tions for  its  redemption. 

The  idea  of  sin,  like  a  worm,  eats  through  the  core  of  the 
poem  and  makes  it  unpalatable.  And  many  a  thing  is  sin 
according  to  Dante  which  is  sometimes  trivial,  and  sometimes 
actually  meritorious.  To  differ  with  authority,  to  follow  out 
your  own  destiny,  to  set  at  naught  superstition,  to  defy 


38  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

unsound  institutions,  are  sins  according  to  the  poet.  He  is 
harsh  in  condemning  if  he  sees  that  you  possess  all  those 
human  instincts  which  you  are  justified  in  cultivating;  he 
rails  at  traits  of  the  flesh  which  it  is  natural  to  be  inherent  in 
it;  he  maintains  all  faults  should  be  exterminated  but  he  does 
not  understand  that  if  such  were  the  case  many  of  our  virtues 
would  go  along  with  them.  He  is  ever  setting  up  before  us 
the  conception  of  sin  as  the  only  reality  in  the  world;  he  sets 
horrible  examples  before  us;  he  finds  a  panacea  for  it  in  the 
worship  of  dogma. 

The  poet  endeavors  to  show  us  how  we  may  reach  the 
highest  form  of  life ;  he  has  a  definite  theory  as  to  its  nature. 
But  no  one  would  seriously  recommend  to  us  to-day  the 
scheme  that  the  poet  has  in  mind.  We  do  not  want  pictures 
of  the  sufferings  of  the  worst  criminals  to  serve  as  examples 
to  us  not  to  commit  like  crimes.  Why  rail  against  the  crimes 
of  murder,  robbery,  treason?  Who  asserts  that  they  are  not 
wrong?  It  seems  that  when  the  poet  is  in  the  right  he  is 
always  commonplace.  Why  also  set  before  us  the  ideals  of 
men  who  never  spent  time  in  reflecting  rationally  on  matters 
of  earthly  and  human  importance,  but  instead  on  monstrous 
and  fabulous  problems,  on  the  solution  of  absolutely  futile  and 
inane  questions  ?  If  Dante  had  at  least  tried  to  show  us  the 
beauty  of  a  life  devoted  to  important  study  and  noble  eleva- 
tion of  spirit  and  relief  of  one's  fellow  creatures;  if  he  had 
conjured  before  us  images  of  figures  who  sought  to  develop 
their  own  abilities,  who  sought  not  after  too  much  theology, 
who  were  not  afraid  of  daring  speculation,  we  would  have 
hearkened  to  him. 

He  cannot  forget  his  scholastic  philosophy ;  he  loves  theology 
more  than  art.  It  will  be  noticed  that  he  is  always  greatest 


DANTE:    THE  DIVINE  COMEDY  39 

where  he  is  least  dogmatic;  he  is  inevitably  inartistic  and 
sterile  when  his  theories  absorb  him.  Many  of  the  charac- 
ters he  meets  spoil  their  tales  by  giving  expression  to  a  tenet 
of  Aquinas.  They  are  often  mere  mouthpieces  for  the  solu- 
tion of  some  petty  question  that  puzzles  the  poet.  He  is  the 
defender  of  almost  every  idea  against  whose  truth  thinkers 
and  writers  of  merit  fought  before  and  after  him.  He  would 
have  placed  in  hell  and  excluded  from  heaven,  almost  every 
really  great  man  of  artistic  power  and  intellectual  attainments 
who  has  ever  lived.  He  judges  rather  than  studies,  he  asserts 
rather  than  explains. 

He  troubles  us  with  political  questions  that  have  long  lost 
their  value.  We  to-day  do  not  find  any  interest  in  the  theories 
that  divided  the  Guelphs  and  the  Ghibellines,  except  from  a 
historical  point  of  view.  We  do  not  care  about  the  strife 
between  the  pope  and  emperor,  about  the  theory  whether  the 
emperor  holds  directly  from  God  as  the  Ghibellines  and  Dante 
with  them  maintained.  We  believe  that  no  one  gets  his  power 
by  divine  right.  The  poet's  political  views  are  introduced 
often  and  form  the  basis  of  many  of  his  judgments.  Though 
we  cannot  expect  him  to  give  even  a  passing  thought  to  the 
theory  of  democracy,  the  fact  is  that  the  political  theories  in 
the  poem  help  in  making  much  of  it  as  obsolete  as  does  the 
theological  intent. 

Again  there  is  entirely  too  much  local  history  in  the  Divine 
Comedy  to  give  it  universal  significance.  The  dissensions, 
the  contemporary  and  petty  affairs  that  figure  constantly, 
detract  from  the  emotional  appeal  of  the  poem.  The  endless 
obscure  names  of  the  catalogues  of  murders  must  be  read 
with  a  history  of  the  times  in  hand.  Unfortunately  most  of 
Dante's  historical  narration  is  not  lit  up  with  the  profound 


40  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

reflections  or  picturesqueness  such  as  we  find  in  some  of  the 
great  histories  of  the  world's  literature.  A  poem  that  seeks 
for  permanence  should  rise  above  the  discords  of  the  poet's 
town  and  should  he  free  from  partisanship  and  prejudice. 

The  critics  of  Dante  are  usually  of  two  kinds.  Those  who 
come  to  him  for  intellectual  nourishment  are  generally  those 
who  are  antagonistic  to  free  thought.  They  have  been,  it 
may  be  added,  the  best  students  of  the  poet  and  have  inter- 
preted him  best,  because  they  have  found  much  that  is  still 
true  for  them  in  the  comedy.  They  naturally  find  their  own 
souls  mirrored  here  and  one  cannot  quarrel  with  them  for 
their  admiration.  One  should  first  dispute  with  them  the 
truth  of  the  theories  they  maintain.  But  there  are  other 
critics  who  accept  none  of  Dante's  ideas  but  look  upon  him 
as  a  painter  and  poet  who  has  an  excellent  command  of  the 
language  and  a  magical  power  of  expression.  They  see  the 
greatness  of  the  epic  in  the  fine  similes  and  brief  descriptions 
both  of  which  in  most  cases  take  up  a  few  lines.  But  can  we 
look  upon  Dante  as  a  world  poet  for  this  alone  ?  Many  writers 
of  our  day  are  finer  literary  artists  than  he.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  many  novelists  who  have  no  universal  significance  have 
surpassed  him  in  descriptive  powers.  ^Esthetic  critics  of 
Dante  forget  that  it  was  not  his  similes  and  descriptions  that 
first  brought  the  poet  fame,  that  it  was  his  theories  and  ideas 
which  were  first  regarded  as  his  real  distinction. 

Countless  essays  and  books  have  been  written  on  questions 
raised  by  the  poem  that  have  no  value  or  importance.  If 
some  one  could  but  make  a  list  of  the  problems  aroused  by 
Dante  we  would  have  an  excellent  example  of  the  useless 
learning  often  wasted  on  classics.  But  we  wish  our  poem  to 
be  both  of  aesthetic  and  intellectual  value  and  not  a  means  of 


DANTE:    THE  DIVINE  COMEDY  41 

studying  mythology,  geography,  pseudo-science,  theology  and 
history.  The  commentators  have  written  essays  and  books 
to  decide  whether  Beatrice  was  a  real  woman  or  only  repre- 
sented theology,  whether  her  rebuke  to  Dante  was  for  his 
heresy  or  immorality;  whether  she  foretold  the  coming  of 
Luther,  whether  she  was  married  or  not.  They  have  specu- 
lated on  the  question  whether  the  allegory  was  political,  relig- 
ious or  moral  in  its  intent ;  they  have  fought  about  the  extent 
of  the  poet's  Catholicism  and  have  even  found  him  very  liberal. 
They  have  been  divided  as  to  whether  there  was  an  analogy 
between  the  scheme  of  the  purifications  of  the  seven  sins  in 
purgatory  and  the  punishment  of  the  crimes  and  sins  in  the 
nine  circles  of  hell.  The  poet's  minor  allegories  and  his 
fabulous  creatures  have  all  been  given  significance. 

There  is  not  a  single  character  who  is  a  hero  because  he 
championed  advanced  ideas.  There  is  not  the  slightest  refer- 
ence to  the  conflicts  which  man  has  with  institutions  that 
harm  him;  nay,  these  institutions  are  held  up  before  us  as 
beacon  lights.  There  is  not  a  passage  that  considers  from  a 
broad  view-point  any  of  the  problems  of  man's  relation  to  the 
universe  at  large.  Expression  is  not  given  to  the  emotions 
that  we  all  know,  in  our  voyage  through  life.  The  poet 
does  not  dwell  on  the  sadness  of  man's  position  in  the  hands 
of  destiny,  or  the  calamities  brought  about  by  poverty  or  ignor- 
ance. He  is  an  enemy  to  freedom,  to  toleration.  He  has  not 
shown  us  any  sympathy  with  an  individualist. 

The  poet  was  behind  his  own  times.  He  had  courage  in 
condemning  abuses,  but  after  all  he  attacked  flagrantly  appar- 
ent misdeeds.  He  assailed  a  few  kings  and  popes,  but  popery 
and  monarchy  were  ideal  institutions  to  him.  He  sided  with 
the  majority  in  all  matters.  He  did  not  quaff  from  the  foun- 


42  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

tain  of  which  all  the  great  intellectual  leaders  of  the  Eenais- 
sance  drank;  the  few  ancient  authors  whom  he  read  had  no 
broadening  effect  upon  him;  he  read  his  own  religion  into 
them.  Can  any  one  imagine  the  pagan  Virgil  speaking  thus 
like  a  theologian.  "  Mad  is  he  who  hopes  that  our  reason 
can  traverse  the  infinite  way  which  One  Substance  in  Three 
Persons  holds.  Be  content,  0  human  race,  with  the  quia 
(i.  e.,  with  the  existence  of  a  thing  rather  than  the  cause  of  its 
existence) ;  for  if  you  had  been  able  to  see  everything,  there 
had  been  no  need  for  Mary  to  bear  child."  Virgil  is  supposed 
to  represent  reason,  but  he  is  made  the  mouthpiece  of  the 
most  unreasonable  statements.  Never  has  a  poet  been  more 
distorted  and  perverted  by  a  disciple  than  has  poor  Virgil  at 
the  hands  of  Dante.  It  is  really  not  Virgil  who  is  speaking 
but  Aquinas  himself;  it  just  pleases  the  Italian  to  call  the 
speaker  by  the  name  of  Virgil. 

Had  there  been  no  other  writers  of  the  poet's  time  who  had 
escaped  from  the  bondage  of  asceticism  and  dogma,  from  the 
belief  in  revelation  and  the  supernatural,  we  might  not  censure 
him  and  would  attribute  his  errors  to  his  times.  But  those 
times  were  a  period  in  which  these  ideas  were  losing  the  great 
sway  that  they  wielded  in  other  ages.  And  Dante  was  not 
one  of  the  elect  who  held  up  before  humanity  higher  ideals. 
He  might  have  been  pardoned  for  having  written  his  poem 
a  few  centuries  earlier,  but  not  for  having  sent  out  such  a 
product  of  superstition  at  the  dawning  of  an  enlightened  age. 

One  of  the  leading  defects  of  Dante  as  a  thinker  and  hence  as 
a  judge  in  moral  matters  is  his  uncompromising  and  undeviat- 
ing  adherence  to  the  doctrine  of  free  will.  He  has  not  the 
slightest  doubt  as  to  the  power  of  man  to  control  every  move 
of  his  body,  every  inclination  of  his  soul,  every  tendency  of  his 


DANTE:    THE  DIVINE  COMEDY  43 

mind,  every  humor  of  his  temperament.  He  does  not  see  the 
slightest  virtue  in  the  theory  of  determinism  which  shows  that 
man  often  is  but  a  puppet  for  whom  the  wires  have  already 
been  pulled  to  play  his  part  here.  He  does  not  consider  that 
often  we  are  the  victims  of  heredity,  of  environment,  of  cir- 
cumstances. A  Jean  Valjean  would  have  repelled  him.  He 
believes  that  man  has  been  made  evil  by  his  rulers,  by  the  fact 
that  the  pope  and  emperor  did  not  govern  independently  in 
spiritual  and  temporal  affairs  respectively.  Hence  the  poet 
can  give  us  no  plausible  views  on  the  subject  of  good  and  evil ; 
he  does  not  measure  them  by  the  amount  of  pain  they  bring; 
he  does  not  derive  them  wholly  from  the  presence  of  the  moral 
sense  in  man ;  he  does  not  weigh  them  properly  in  connection 
with  the  rest  of  the  universe  or  show  that  they  are  but  human 
conceptions.  We  therefore  can  expect  very  little  sympathy 
for  a  wrong-doer  from  Dante ;  we  only  find  it  in  cases  where  he 
knew  personally  some  of  the  sufferers.  He  does  not  divide  the 
goats  from  the  sheep ;  all  sinners  of  one  species  are  hustled 
together;  if  he  ever  excepts  some  one  it  is  because  some  one 
prayed  for  him. 

Dante  sums  up  the  leading  ideas  of  the  medieval  ages  in  his 
poem.  As  a  compendium  of  ethics,  religion  and  philosophy 
of  the  popular  kind  which  prevailed  in  the  dark  times  before 
the  Eenaissance,  it  may  merit  study  by  those  interested.  As 
a  living  poem  most  of  it  is  hopeless.  All  we  find  in  it  are  a 
few  episodes  that  might  have  been  written  independently.  We 
are  not  concerned  about  what  is  going  on  in  his  heaven  or  hell, 
but  are  interested  in  the  speeches  of  some  characters  who 
related  what  went  on  in  this  world.  If  the  poet  could  but 
come  back  to  life  and  see  that  we  discard  the  so-called  truths 
that  he  taught  and  that  we  linger  over  some  of  the  tales  colored 
4 


44  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

by  emotion,  he  no  doubt  would  think  we  were  laying  stress  on 
the  secondary  portions  of  the  poem.  He  would  probably  claim 
that  these  stories  were  incidental  or  illustrative,  but  were  not 
the  raison  d'etre  of  the  poem. 

What  a  spectacle  of  a  poet  trying  to  give  us  the  last  word  on 
human  wisdom,  and  we  allow  our  childish  fancy  to  revel  in 
some  idle  tales  in  the  poem !  What  an  ironical  situation  it  is 
when  we  dismiss  the  passages  meant  to  save  our  souls  and  pay 
most  attention  to  a  story  of  adultery  in  the  poem !  Behold 
Dante  striving  to  win  us  to  heaven,  and  we  instead  ponder 
on  his  exile,  his  anger,  his  sorrow.  As  a  moralist  who  would 
redeem  us  we  find  him  useless  and  instead  we  find  enjoyment 
in  those  passages  barren  of  ideas,  but  telling  of  simple  events 
like  the  meeting  of  one  poet  with  another.  It  is  a  strange  fate 
that  some  poets  undergo  and  yet  very  justly  so.  Can  one 
conceive  of  Dante's  indignation  on  discovering  a  fine  critic 
like  John  Addington  Symonds  ignoring  the  weighty  philosoph- 
ical discourses  and  explanations  of  the  universe  in  the  poem 
and  waxing  enthusiastic  over  a  simile  ?  If  a  poet  would  teach, 
and  gives  us  the  poorest  intellectual  product  of  the  time,  this 
is  the  fate  he  deserves.  Great  ideas  that  remain  true  for  ages, 
couched  in  artistic  style  and  lit  up  with  emotion,  will  not  suffer 
the  fate  that  much  of  Dante's  poem  has  experienced. 

When  the  reader  of  the  future  thinks  of  Dante's  poem  it 
may  be  as  a  medieval  literary  product  in  which  have  been 
imbedded  several  literary  jewels  like  the  stories  of  Francesca, 
Count  Ugolino,  the  Apostrophe  to  Italy,  the  account  of  the 
examples  of  pride  sculptured  on  the  rock  and  of  humility 
engraven  on  the  pavement  in  the  first  ledge  of  purgatory,  the 
prophecy  of  Cacciaguida  and  probably  another  half  dozen 
episodes.  These  will  be  all  that  is  left  of  the  poem.  A  very 


DANTE:    THE  DIVINE  COMEDY  45 

small  residuum,  the  reader  will  say  for  a  poet  rated  so  high. 
But  Dante  has  left  some  other  poems  and  a  few  passages  of 
excellent  prose,  though  also  an  obsolete  political  treatise.  His 
figure  with  the  hatchet  face  and  sharp  features  weighed  in 
grief,  wandering  about  in  exile  and  refusing  to  return  to  his 
native  city  under  humiliating  conditions  will  always  live.  As 
a  type  and  personality  of  his  time  he  will  interest  us.  As  a 
Avorld  poet  his  position  ought  to  decline.  But  a  poet  he  will 
essentially  remain. 


MILTON:    PAEADISE  LOST 

Paradise  Lost  holds  the  distinction  of  being  the  greatest 
narrative  poem  in  the  English  language.  It  is  a  tale  of  the 
origin  and  history  of  all  of  man's  misfortunes ;  it  also  attempts 
a  solution  of  them.  It  treats  of  the  creation  of  the  universe, 
of  the  justice  of  God,  of  the  origin  of  evil ;  it  offers  an  explana- 
tion of  the  theory  of  free  will.  Its  leading  characters  are 
supernatural  or  mythical  beings  in  whose  existence  the  poet 
believed ;  its  scenes  of  action .  range  throughout  the  entire 
universe.  There  are  descriptions  of  battles  between  devils 
and  angels,  which  of  course  never  took  place ;  there  is  the  tale 
of  how  Paradise,  the  garden  of  Eden,  was  lost,  although  it 
never  existed;  there  is  the  mournful  event  of  how  human 
nature  lost  its  perfection,  which  it  certainly  never  possessed. 

Let  us  examine  the  poem  and  see  how  much  of  it  remains 
vital,  poetic  and  profound  to-day.  Let  us  note  what  effect 
the  growth  of  advanced  ideas  in  science  and  philosophy  has 
made  upon  our  critical  judgment  of  it  as  a  work  of  art.  We 
know  that  most  of  the  axiomatic  ideas  in  the  sphere  of  thought 
to-day  are  just  the  reverse  of  the  views  that  Milton  enter- 
tained. The  chief  difficulty  that  we  find  with  the  poem  is 
that  it  is  built  upon  a  theological  system  that  is  false  and 
upon  a  demonology  that  is  monstrous.  We  shall  discover  that 
the  poem  is  vitiated  by  the  presence  of  the  Ptolemaic  system 
of  astromony,  which  the  poet  deliberately  chose  for  his  purpose 
though  he  knew  the  Copernican  system  was  the  true  one;  we 
shall  be  irritated  by  intricate  studies  of  supernatural  creatures ; 
we  shall  be  wearied  with  pedantic  and  bookish  learning;  we 
shall  be  in  the  mazes  of  infelicitous  secondary  allegories; 


48  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

above  all  we  shall  learn  that  the  central  ideas  of  the  poem  are 
fabrications  unworthy  of  being  the  foundations  of  a  literary 
performance.  Yet  we  shall  find  a  sublimity  and  majesty  of 
style,  and  an  excellently  drawn  portrait  of  Satan.  We  shall 
read  beautiful  descriptions,  find  our  intellects  and  emotions 
stirred  by  a  few  speeches ;  and  shall  note  great  narrative  powers 
displayed  here  and  there. 

Critics  always  warn  us  that  in  reading  the  poem  we  should 
for  the  time  being  forget  that  we  are  in  the  midst  of  mythology, 
and  that  we  should  suppose  the  story  to  be  true.  But  we 
cannot  resist  the  promptings  of  our  feelings.  Our  sense  of 
truth  is  offended;  we  find  the  absurdities  too  palpable;  all 
laws  of  probability  are  defied;  the  inconsistencies  are  too 
numerous.  We  become  bewildered  by  the  mythological 
machinery.  We  cannot  follow  Lucifer  in  his  peregrinations 
throughout  the  universe.  We  are  confused  by  the  dividing 
up  of  heaven  and  hell  and  cannot  conceive  of  the  events  taking 
place  therein  which  the  poet  describes.  We  inevitably  find 
ourselves  subjecting  the  fiends  to  the  laws  of  nature,  and  pain- 
fully struggle  with  our  imaginations  in  making  ourselves 
believe  that  they  can  subsist  in  vacuity.  We  who  wish  to  know 
more  of  human  events  on  our  planet  cannot  stir  up  interest 
in  supernatural  events  in  chaos.  We  also  cannot  forget  that 
the  poet  simply  commentated  upon  the  first  few  chapters  of 
the  Bible ;  that  he  took  seriously  some  legends  whose  truth  no 
one  would  seriously  defend  to-day  and  which  were  disregarded 
by  thinkers  even  in  ancient  times.  He  spoils  the  tales  by 
adding  a  tissue  of  irrelevent  foreign  matter  read  into  them  by 
theologians,  such  as  the  story  of  the  devil  entering  the  serpent, 
the  battle  of  God  with  Lucifer  who  is  trying  to  take  revenge 
on  God,  and  the  sin  of  Adam  demanding  atonement  by  the 
death  of  God's  son. 


MILTCXNT:    PARADISE  LOST  49 

The  most  famous  books  of  the  poem  are  the  first  two.  Here 
there  is  little  or  no  theology;  here  we  are  not  yet  troubled 
with  those  two  inconceivable  individuals,  Adam  and  Eve. 
We  have  the  picture  of  a  defeated  general,  even  though  the 
poet  does  call  him  Lucifer.  Many  critics  regard  these  two 
books  of  the  poem  as  the  only  ones  in  it  deserving  of  enduring 
fame.  The  secret  of  their  greatness  is  in  the  speeches  scat- 
tered through  them.  Milton  who  intended  to  justify  the  ways 
of  God  towards  man  and  show  us  the  cause  of  all  our  woes, 
is  remembered  for  some  speeches  of  his  devils  which  are  good 
because  of  their  wordly  wisdom.  No  doubt  even  these  speeches 
have  been  overestimated,  and  the  frequency  with  which  they 
have  been  quoted  has  made  them  somewhat  commonplace. 
But  they  are  real  literature  and  time  has  not  as  yet  made  them 
obsolete.  The  very  first  speech  of  Satan  makes  us  admire 
his  dauntlessness,  his  noble  arrogance,  his  determination  never 
to  yield.  We  think  of  him  as  of  a  defeated  human  being  and 
forget  that  his  battle  is  supposed  to  have  taken  place  with 
God ;  we  retain  in  our  memories  those  words  about  the  uncon- 
querable will  not  being  lost.  Then  we  feel  sorry  for  him 
when  he  contrasts  hell  with  the  place  he  had  lost.  And  we 
have  his  well-known  reflection  about  a  mind  being  able  to 
make  a  heaven  of  hell  and  a  hell  of  heaven;  and  his  policy 
"better  to  reign  in  hell,  than  serve  in  heaven."  There  are 
about  seven  speeches  in  each  of  these  opening  two  books  and 
most  of  their  contents  brim  over  with  expedient,  non-moral, 
Machiavellian  plans.  The  spirits  seek  a  goal  and  will  allow 
nothing  to  hinder  them.  When  they  resolve,  as  the  archangel 
advises  them,  on  war  "  open  or  understood/'  and  to  work  by 
fraud  what  force  cannot  effect,  somehow  or  other  we  are  not 
repelled  by  the  insidiousness  of  the  scheme  planned. 


50  DANTE  AND  OTHEK  WANING  CLASSICS 

The  speeches  in  the  second  book  might  have  been  spoken  at 
a  gathering  of  defeated  chiefs  who  are  deliberating  whether 
to  continue  the  war,  sue  for  peace,  or  retreat  altogether.  We 
have  the  passions  of  revenge  and  hatred  shown  in  these  mono- 
logues and  the  character  of  each  rebel  angel  shows  itself. 
These  devils  have  fine  intellects,  and  utter  thoughts  naturally 
suggested  by  the  circumstances.  We  admire  them  all,  Moloch 
with  his  vindictive  nature,  and  Belial  with  his  common  sense 
about  the  futility  of  further  resistance  in  the  face  of  the 
impossible.  We  are  even  more  impressed  by  the  suggestion 
of  Mammon  to  make  the  best  of  the  present  situation  and  get 
accustomed  to  it.  As  a  matter  of  fact  every  speaker  is  con- 
vincing. When  we  finish  these  speeches  and  turn  to  the  other 
portions  of  the  two  books  the  contrast  is  great. 

We  have  the  pedantic  and  absurd  descriptions  which  make 
us  remember  that  the  rebel  angels  are  not  human,  though  we 
were  being  led  to  believe  so  from  the  human  reasoning  in  the 
speeches.  No,  we  do  not  care  for  the  picture  where  Satan 
and  his  crew  lie  in  hell.  The  place  is  not  real,  the  tortures 
never  occurred,  everything  is  incongruous.  We  are  not  im- 
pressed by  the  picture  of  Satan  chained  to  the  burning  lake. 
All  the  pedantic  comparisons  which  the  image  of  the  arch- 
fiend arouses  in  the  poet's  mind  are  ludicrous  and  have  been 
unfairly  admired.  We  have  the  simile  about  the  Leviathan 
who  is  often  mistaken  for  an  island,  whom  Satan  resembles. 
There  is  the  description  of  Satan's  shield,  which  is  compared 
to  the  moon  and  then  Galileo's  name  is  drawn  in  because  he 
had  perfected  the  telescope.  What  would  we  to-day  think  of 
a  poet  who  used  the  sun  in  a  simile  and  then  brought  in  the 
name  of  Kirchoff  because  he  had  invented  the  spectroscope? 
The  host  of  Satan  reminds  the  poet  of  autumn  leaves  in 


MILTON"  :    PAEADISE  LOST  51 

Vallambrosa,  then  of  the  reeds  on  the  coast  of  the  Dead  Sea, 
the  name  of  which  evokes  the  story  of  Pharaoh  and  the 
Children  of  Israel.  As  the  angels  rise  and  fly  the  density  of 
the  swarm  is  brought  home  to  us  by  reference  to  Moses's  locusts, 
and  the  number  of  the  spirits  is  suggested  to  us  by  mention 
of  the  invasions  of  Eome  by  the  Goths,  Huns  and  Vandals. 
The  army  of  the  angels  was  such  as  to  put  to  shame  the  largest 
forces  in  the  annals  of  the  world;  even  all  the  knights  who 
jested  at  Aspramont  and  Montalbron,  and  elsewhere  were 
mere  pygmies  compared  to  them. 

Milton  reaches  the  climax  of  pedantry  and  inartistic  writing 
when,  imitating  Homer,  he  gives  us  a  catalogue  of  the  names 
of  the  leaders  of  the  host.  By  some  strange  metamorphosis 
these  angels  are  the  very  heathen  gods  whom  later  the  nations 
in  and  about  Palestine  worshipped.  Every  god  is  tagged  and 
described  by  his  various  surnames;  the  extent  of  his  earthly 
jurisdiction  is  also  given.  The  counts  in  the  bills  of  indict- 
ment consist  of  the  leading  crimes  of  which  he  was  guilty  later 
in  the  course  of  his  earthly  career.  This  little  band  whose 
whole  combined  realms  occupied  a  very  small  piece  of  land, 
defied  the  Creator  of  the  universe. 

There  is  too  much  of  the  school-room  in  Milton's  poem. 
He  is  always  being  reminded  that  such  and  such  an  event  in 
hell  bears  a  resemblance  to  some  historical  event  that  took 
place  later  on  this  earth.  He  displays  his  scientific  knowl- 
edge, his  information  in  mythology,  his  theological  studies. 
When  he  describes  the  rising  of  Pandemonium,  the  palace 
where  the  angels  are  to  sit  in  counsel,  he  does  it  with  his 
usual  pedantry. 

But  the  poet  also  moralizes  and  badly,  in  these  two  opening 
books.  There  is  the  immoral  assertion  that  tells  us  God 


52  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

allowed  Satan  to  proceed  to  commit  crimes  in  order  that  he 
might  heap  up  damnation  for  himself.  We  are  warned  not 
to  be  surprised  that  riches  grow  in  hell,  for  that  soil  may  best 
deserve  that  precious  bane. 

While  Satan  is  going  to  explore  this  world  and  try  to  lure 
man  from  the  right  path,  as  this  was  what  the  spirits  had 
decided  to  do  in  order  to  be  revenged  upon  the  Almighty,  the 
other  angels  amuse  themselves  in  his  absence.  The  whole 
picture  is  ludicrous;  they  are  supposed  to  be  suffering  with 
fire  and  yet  they  can  sit  there  and  discuss  freewill  and  provi- 
dence, or  play  the  harp;  some  compete  in  racing,  others  for 
amusement  tear  up  hills  and  rocks  or  go  out  exploring  hell. 
Milton  knew  his  Homer  and  he  reproduces  scenes  here  from 
the  Greek  poet's  mythology.  The  chief  thing  that  can  be  said 
in  extenuation  of  this  whole  scene  is  that  we  are  at  least  saved 
the  torturing  scenes  we  find  in  Dante.  No  character  in  hell, 
human  or  diabolic  could  think  of  amusement  in  playing  a 
harp. 

The  lengthy  allegory  of  the  birth  of  death  through  Satan's 
sexual  relations  with  sin,  and  then  of  the  incestuous  relation 
of  death  with  the  latter,  its  own  mother,  is  repulsive.  The 
account  of  the  hell-hounds  begotten  by  death  creeping  into 
the  womb  of  their  mother  sin  is  nauseating.  The  story  is 
unconvincing  and  seeks  to  show  us  that  sin  brought  death 
into  the  world,  and  that  Satan  was  originally  responsible. 
However  one  wonders  why  sin  is  made  by  God  to  be  the  por- 
tress at  the  gate,  when  He  knew  that  she  would  give  Satan 
the  key. 

We  have  pointed  out  some  of  the  merits  and  faults  of  the 
two  first  books  of  the  poem.  Thus  far  in  spite  of  some  good 
speeches  and  the  sublime  style  here  and  there  it  does  not  appear 


MILTON:    PAKADISE  LOST  53 

that  the  poem  ought  to  rank  very  high.  As  yet  little  of  Milton 
the  religious  thinker  and  sensuous  poet  has  appeared.  We 
shall  have  him  in  these  two  roles  in  other  parts  of  the  poem. 
We  shall  find  more  Miltonian  descriptions  and  more  pedantry 
and  puerility.  But  we  have  seen  him  in  his  highest  role,  the 
creator  of  the  character  of  Lucifer,  who  has  some  dignified 
traits. 

The  other  book  of  the  poem  that  ranks  high  with  many 
critics  is  the  ninth.  Here  we  really  have  the  story  of  the 
temptation  of  Adam  and  Eve,  their  succumbing  thereto  and 
their  downfall ;  the  action  and  substance  of  the  poem. 

We  cannot  immediately  resist  thinking  that  a  poet  who 
teaches  that  the  eating  of  an  apple  was  the  cause  of  the  greatest 
misery  that  ever  afflicted  humanity  has  chosen  a  wretched  and 
trite  theme  for  a  great  poem.  The  story  is  too  trivial  to  us 
to  penetrate  into  the  allegory  behind  it.  Yet  from  the  start 
the  poet  is  impressed  with  the  greatness  of  his  theme  which 
he  tells  us  he  thinks  much  more  heroic  than  the  idea  of 
revenge  that  prompted  Achilles  to  fight  on  account  of  the 
death  of  his  friend. 

The  arguments  between  Adam  and  Eve  who  wishes  to  work 
alone  in  another  part  of  the  garden  are  commonplace.  Adam 
cannot  persuade  her  to  remain  by  his  side  even  though  he 
discourses  about  free  will.  Then  Satan  disguised  as  a  serpent 
finds  her  and  is  almost  moved  not  to  prosecute  his  aim  by  the 
sight  of  her  beauty.  He  flatters  her  and  uses  fraud.  He 
pretends  that  he  is  able  to  speak  because  he  had  eaten  of  the 
tree  of  knowledge.  He  explains  to  her  that  she  will  not  die 
by  eating  of  the  forbidden  fruit;  he  ate  and  lived  to  tell  the 
tale.  Eve  eats  and  immediately  her  intellectual  powers  grow. 
Where  before  she  was  in  absolute  ignorance  she  now  possesses 


54  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

supreme  wisdom.  We  cannot  appreciate  this  sudden  change 
in  her.  We  have  never  been  in  her  situation ;  our  own  knowl- 
edge is  a  matter  of  gradual  growth  and  we  have  not  been 
placed  in  a  condition  wherein  from  almost  total  insensibility 
we  sprang  instantly  into  the  possession  of  a  great  intellect. 
It  would  be  as  if  an  infant  suddenly  became  a  philosopher. 
So  she  is  not  undergoing  a  transformation  that  we  have  ever 
experienced. 

The  entire  dialogue  between  Satan  and  Eve  has  been  entirely 
over-praised.  Eve's  arguments  reek  with  silliness.  She  does 
not  give  any  reason  for  refusing  to  eat  except  that  she  was 
forbidden  to  do  so ;  she  believes  that  she  will  die  for  no  reason 
but  because  she  had  eaten.  After  Eve  makes  Adam  eat,  fear- 
ing that  in  case  she  died  he  would  wed  another  Eve  who  does 
not  even  appear  on  the  horizon,  they  both  begin  to  have  all  the 
passions  natural  to  human  beings,  shame,  remorse,  suspicion, 
anger,  mistrust,  hate  and  love.  We  do  not  find  ourselves 
depicted  here,  for  we  were  never  without  feeling  or  the  capacity 
for  passion  and  then  discovered  them  suddenly  in  ourseNes. 
It  is  as  if  two  statues  had  suddenly  come  to  life.  We  cannot 
sympathise  with  people  who  suddenly  received  all  the  human 
faculties,  for  we  have  never  been  without  these.  Whatever 
instincts  and  emotions  we  possess  have  evolved  in  the  growth 
of  the  human  race ;  no  one  has  received  them  suddenly. 

At  first  Adam  and  Eve  could  not  distinguish  between  good 
and  evil  but  after  having  eating  the  apple  they  can  do  so. 
How  they  receive  this  power  we  are  not  told  any  more  than 
why  they  were  forbidden  to  acquire  it.  There  is  no  reason 
given  why  they  should  not  have  eaten  the  fruit.  But  why 
have  the  tree  growing  in  the  garden  where  they  may  always 
succumb  to  temptation?  The  final  impression  that  Milton 


MILTON:    PAEADISE  LOST  55 

unwittingly  gives  us  is  that  God  Himself  is  responsible  for 
their  calamities.  If  He  made  man  without  strength  of  will, 
and  knew  that  he  would  not  exercise  his  will  power,  why  did 
He  let  man  decide  his  own  fatal  destiny  ? 

When  we  read  a  story  of  temptation  and  fall,  trailing  dire 
disaster,  we  have  the  right  to  expect  that  these  calamities  will 
be  the  natural  consequences  of  succumbing.  A  person  may 
seek  inordinate  fame  or  illegal  love,  or  ill-gotten  wealth  and 
hence  lay  in  store  for  himself  griefs  that  he  might  have  natur- 
ally anticipated  from  his  quest,  but  we  cannot  perceive  how  eat- 
ing an  apple  will  bring  about  all  the  disasters  of  mankind.  No 
allegorical  interpretation  can  save  the  situation. 

The  rest  of  the  poem  is,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  addi- 
tional speeches  and  descriptions  obsolete.  In  fact  there  are 
many  sections  that  are  notorious  as  illustrating  the  low  level 
occasionally  reached  by  a  sublime  poet.  There  are  whole  books 
that  are  scarcely  redeemed  by  any  virtues  whatsoever.  They 
abound  in  antiquated  science,  astronomy,  theology.  They  set 
forth  conceptions  borrowed  from  mythology,  they  paraphrase 
chapters  of  the  Bible,  they  invariably  mistake  falsehood  for 
truth,  ugliness  for  beauty.  They  incorporate  Milton's  politi- 
cal and  religious  views,  now  no  longer  tenable.  Scarcely  any 
topic  of  human  interest  is  touched  upon. 

For  instance  four  successive  books  of  the  poem,  the  fifth 
to  the  eighth  inclusive,  may  be  dismissed  almost  in  toto. 
They  are  occupied  by  conversations  between  Adam  and  the 
angel  Eaphael  who  tells  him  of  the  war  in  heaven  between 
God  and  the  rebel  angels,  and  Christ's  victory  over  them ;  then 
the  creation  of  the  world  in  six  days  is  described.  The  angel 
had  been  advised  by  God  to  go  down  and  tell  Adam  about  the 
plot  of  Satan.  Eaphael's  account  of  the  physiology  of  angels 


56  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

and  of  their  digestive  process  is  about  as  preposterous  as  Adam's 
philosophical  explanation  to  Eve  of  the  cause  of  dreams. 

We  also  hear  from  Eaphael  how  God  begot  a  son  to  whom 
all  the  angels  had  to  bow.  One  finds  the  son  out  of  place 
here  in  heaven  before  the  time  when  he  was  to  go  down  in  the 
world  to  preach  his  sermon  on  the  mount.  There  is  no  men- 
tion of  him  in  the  opening  chapters  of  the  Bible,  although 
theologians  and  commentators  have  read  his  name  into  these 
sections  as  they  have  done  also  in  the  love  poem  called  "  The 
Song  of  Songs  "  and  other  parts  of  the  Old  Testament.  We 
are  not  interested  in  knowing  why  he  was  created  after  instead 
of  before  the  angels,  although  we  would  like  to  know  why  God 
delegated  many  tasks  to  His  son,  such  as  sending  him  out  to 
rout  the  rebel  angels.  The  son  is  described  as  riding  on  a 
chariot,  convoyed  by  cherubim  with  four  faces  and  bodies  set 
with  eyes.  Fires  flashed,  smoke  belched,  ten  thousand  saints 
followed.  The  son  had  a  bow  and  arrow  to  cast  lightning, 
and  his  ensign  blazed.  Later  the  son  helps  create  the  uni- 
verse for  God,  having  circumscribed  it  with  a  golden  compass. 
We  found  the  same  son  in  the  third  book  discussing  theology 
with  God,  and  we  must  confess  we  are  not  overwhelmed  by 
his  heroism  when  he  offers  to  die  for  man.  He  is  a  colorless 
character.  Milton  failed  here  completely  for  the  son  bears 
resemblance  neither  to  a  human  being  nor  a  god;  he  is  not 
subject  to  passion,  yet  he  is  not  free  from  the  possibility  of 
death. 

The  reader  is  always  wondering  why  God  allowed  the  rebel 
angels  to  rebel,  since  He  is  omnipotent.  Still  we  find  that  He 
even  suggests  that  He  might  lose  Heaven;  and  He  also  dis- 
plays lack  of  dignity  in  the  derisive  attitude  he  maintains 
towards  Satan.  We  continue  to  wade  through  the  story  which 


MILTON  :    PARADISE  LOST  57 

the  angel  Kaphael  is  telling  to  Adam.  He  shows  us  how  the 
angel  Abdiel  refused  to  join  the  rebellious  forces,  combating 
Satan  with  commonplace  arguments  and  rebukes.  Satan 
replies  in  a  speech  showing  his  usual  intellectual  powers. 

The  story  of  the  war  in  heaven  occupies  the  sixth  book. 
Naturally  most  of  it  is  reminiscent  of  the  wars  of  Cromwell. 
The  bringing  of  cannon  into  heaven  has  always  been  the 
subject  of  much  ridicule.  The  conception  of  angels  and  devils 
fighting  like  human  beings  is  in  itself  ludicrous,  but  it  is  made 
infinitely  more  so  by  the  use  of  military  engines  borrowed 
from  man.  Michael  and  Gabriel  are  sent  out  to  lead  the 
armies  of  God.  Abdiel  indulges  in  some  preliminary  ranting 
and  thinks  that  he  defeats  Satan  by  words.  The  battle  now 
rages  and  Satan  and  Michael  meet  in  combat;  the  former  is 
wounded  and  howls  with  pain,  but  the  wound  heals  up  for 
angels  can  only  die  by  being  annihilated;  they  cannot  be 
mortally  wounded.  Satan  invented  the  cannons  after  his  first 
day's  defeat,  and  the  angels  are  temporarily  thrown  into  con- 
fusion, but  soon  they  tear  up  mountains  and  hills  which  they 
throw  at  the  devils.  The  mountain  throwing  scene  is  usually 
passed  over  by  Miltonians  out  of  charity  for  their  bard.  It 
is  at  this  stage  that  the  son  comes  to  the  rescue.  He  drives 
the  devils  out  of  heaven  with  his  thundering.  He  did  not  seek 
to  annihilate  them  but  to  root  them  out  of  heaven  and  drive 
them  into  hell.  But  why  should  he  not  have  exterminated 
them  and  saved  the  human  race  all  its  troubles,  and  also  thus 
kept  himself  from  dying  for  it?  Why  didn't  the  Almighty 
make  the  rebel  angels  respect  His  son  before  compelling  the 
latter  to  defeat  them  ?  Why  did  the  battle  have  to  last  three 
days  and  why  didn't  God  Himself  fight?  Above  all  how  did 
the  narrating  angel  get  hold  of  a  copy  of  some  of  the  world's 
epic  poems  to  assist  him  in  describing  these  wars  ? 


58  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

After  telling  of  the  wars,  Eaphael  describes  how  the  world 
was  created  in  seven  days.  He  uses  the  language  of  the  first 
chapter  of  the  Bible  and  adds  to  and  embellishes  it.  He  is 
also  quite  an  astronomer,  but  everything  he  says  on  this  theme 
is  out  of  date  for  us,  because  we  know  it  is  all  neither  science 
nor  literature.  We  are  aware  that  the  theories  of  modern 
geology  and  evolution  were  not  known  in  those  days  and  we  do 
not  quarrel  with  Milton  for  his  hopeless  science,  even  though 
some  of  the  Greek  philosophers  knew  more  about  the  subject 
than  he  did. 

The  story  of  Adam's  creation  as  he  tells  it  to  the  angel  does 
not  move  us.  We  do  not  comprehend  a  situation  where  a 
man  is  born  in  the  adult  stage  with  all  his  faculties  upon  him 
and  immediately  gets  an  instantaneous  impression  of  the 
novelty  of  the  scenes  before  him.  We  cannot  appreciate  his 
feelings  when  for  the  first  time  he  finds  himself  confronted 
with  life.'  We  ourselves  get  the  impress  of  earthly  things 
gradually  by  a  long  process.  We  have  judged  the  world  with 
the  imagination  of  a  child  and  the  vision  of  a  boy  and  the 
reflection  of  a  man.  We  do  not  recall  our  first  complete  sight 
of  the  universe ;  we  have  never  burst  out  into  the  full  contem- 
plation of  life  the  instant  after  we  had  been  in  oblivion. 

Then  the  whole  scene  where  Adam  suggests  to  God  that  he 
wants  a  wife  is  ridiculous.  Imagine  God  joking  and  telling 
Adam  that  He  has  no  wife,  although  we  know  He  has  a  son ; 
imagine  the  Supreme  Being  acting  like  a  teasing  papa  who  is 
asked  by  his  child  for  a  toy.  The  poet's  sense  of  humor  was 
not  highly  developed.  But  God  admits  that  Adam  is  right, 
the  animals  were  created  with  mates,  why  not  he?  So  the 
creation  of  the  woman  from  Adam's  rib  takes  place  and  the 
first  Love  affair  in  the  world  is  begun.  The  angel  hearing 


MILTON:    PARADISE  LOST  59 

Adam's  story  attacks  the  ravages  of  passion  but  adds  that 
angels  also  love.  We  look  in  vain  for  a  description  of  the 
feelings  displayed  by  lovers  when  they  first  meet.  There  is 
nothing  in  the  situation  that  has  any  human  interest,  because 
we  have  not  met  our  Eves  in  this  way.  The  whole  story  of 
the  creation  of  man  and  woman  and  the  universe  is  anything 
but  literature. 

There  are  two  famous  conceptions  in  the  poem  that  have 
become  well  known  through  the  sheer  folly  that  Milton  dis- 
played in  creating  them,  that  of  the  Fool's  Paradise  in  the 
third  book  and  of  the  bridge  built  by  sin  and  death  connecting 
earth  and  hell,  in  the  tenth  book.  The  first  region  contains 
Catholics,  seekers  of  fame  and  some  philosophers  and  giants. 
The  bridge  built  by  sin  and  death  over  which  Satan  sends  the 
two  engineers  down  to  the  earth  is  a  direct  result  of  the  eating 
of  the  apple.  God  sees  sin  and  death  take  possession  of  the 
earth  and  gives  a  very  poor  reason  for  allowing  them  to  do  so. 
But  he  does  so  because  he  wishes  that  the  filth  caused  by  man's 
sin  may  be  licked  up  and  that  the  son  may  have  an  opportunity 
of  flinging  both  of  the  malefactors  out  of  the  earth.  However 
the  angels  sing  that  God's  decrees  are  just,  although  we  wonder 
why  He  did  not  interfere  and  save  the  world  so  much  pain  and 
spare  His  son's  dying  to  save  man.  We  also  cannot  help 
smiling  at  Milton's  implicit  belief  that  great  calamities  have 
afflicted  the  world  because  of  Adam's  sin.  The  seasons 
changed,  the  winds  blew  so  that  spring  should  not  smile 
perpetually,  the  animals  began  to  devour  one  another;  all 
because  of  the  eating  of  the  apple.  Xone  of  these  catastrophes 
ever  took  place  before,  according  to  the  poet.  We  cannot 
enter  into  the  spirit  of  the  allegory  simply  because  we  know 
there  never  was  any  connection  between  any  deed  of  man 
5 


60  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

and  the  changes  in  seasons  or  butchery  of  one  another  among 
animals;  for  these  events  took  place  long  before  man  came. 

There  is  nothing  more  cruel  in  the  poem  than  the  kaleido- 
scope of  future  calamities  that  is  shown  to  Adam  and  Eve  by 
the  Angel  Michael.  Adam  faces  the  horror  of  seeing  all  the 
troubles  of  the  world  that  he  has  caused.  The  consolation 
that  he  gets  is  that  the  son  will  set  everything  right.  The 
image  of  death  is  shown  to  him  so  vividly  that  there  can  be  no 
possibility  of  his  forgetting  it.  He  sees  one  of  his  own  sons 
kill  the  other,  who  rolls  in  the  dust  and  blood.  Moreover  the 
generous  angel  shows  Adam  a  lazar-house  where  he  sees  all 
the  afflictions  that  are  to  kill  his  children,  madness,  epilepsy, 
ulcers,  colic,  atrophy.  Then  he  is  forcecl  to  utter  a  real  rea- 
sonable and  rebellious  sentiment.  Why  is  life  given  to  him 
to  be  taken  away  thus?  Who  would  not  refuse  to  accept  life 
or  give  it  up  if  he  knew  what  was  to  face  him  ? 

No  doubt  one  of  the  most  effective  sections  of  the  whole 
poem  is  the  last  third  of  the  tenth  book  where  we  have  Adam's 
lament  for  his  fate,  and  his  quarrel  and  reconciliation  with  Eve. 
For  once  they  become  actual  human  beings  with  passions  and 
despair.  Adam's  lament  is  rich  in  intellectual  display  and 
emotion.  We  have  the  unhappy  blind  poet  speaking  here. 
We  forget  that  the  lament  is  about  something  that  never 
happened ;  we  imagine  now  that  the  punishment  is  real.  Why 
did  God  create  us  and  then  allow  us  to  suffer?  Why  were 
terms  made  with  us  in  the  formation  of  which  we  had  no  share, 
and  in  the  keeping  of  which  we  find  ourselves  hampered? 
The  rebuke  to  Eve  is  very  likely  taken  from  the  poet's  own 
household,  and  we  are  interested  in  Adam's  anti-feminism. 
But  soon  we  see  the  finer  side  of  his  nature  after  he  hears  her 
pathetic  lament,  in  which  she  is  the  mouthpiece  of  woman- 


MILTON:    PARADISE  LOST  61 

kind.  Eve's  suggestion  of  suicide  is  not  entertained  by  Adam 
and  we  are  happy  to  know  that  they  can  derive  consolation 
from  the  fact  that  they  will  be  able  to  wreak  revenge  on  the 
serpent.  One  regrets  that  so  much  art  and  passion  should 
have  been  wasted  on  an  imaginary  sorrow.  But  nevertheless 
here  Adam  is  ourselves,  and  his  fears  and  cries  are  our  own. 

There  are  several  other  powerful  scenes  in  the  poem,  espe- 
cially Satan's  address  to  the  sun,  and  we  might  add  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  Garden  of  Eden.  The  latter  may  suffer  somewhat 
because  of  too  many  mythological  allusions,  but  we  find  it 
altogether  a  good  piece  of  landscape  painting.  The  address 
to  the  sun  might  have  been  spoken  by  Napoleon  at  St.  Helena. 

But  there  is  so  much  in  the  poem  that  makes  it  antiquated 
and  dull.  The  Lucifer  whom  we  admired  in  the  first  two 
books  loses  his  interest  for  us.  We  are  amused  at  the  idea 
of  his  lodging  in  the  sun  and  of  his  changing  into  various 
animals  like  a  toad,  a  cormorant,  a  serpent.  We  yawningly 
observe  him  escaping  Gabriel's  watch,  only  marvelling  at  the 
stupid  angel  with  shield  and  helmet,  unable  to  do  his  duty. 
A  messenger  must  glide  down  a  sunbeam  to  warn  him.  We 
look  on  almost  contemptuously  at  the  scene  where  Satan  in 
the  form  of  a  toad  is  speared  by  the  angel's  messenger  to  be 
made  to  assume  his  real  shape.  Satan's  debate  with  Gabriel 
bores  us,  and  we  are  amused  at  the  poet's  conception  of  God 
hanging  up  a  pair  of  scales,  which  show  that  Satan  will  be 
defeated  in  his  combat  with  Gabriel.  We  rail  at  the  criminal 
negligence  of  the  angel  in  deliberately  allowing  Satan  to 
escape,  but  this  had  to  be  done  to  help  Milton's  scheme.  And 
God  is  presumed  to  be  looking  on  and  does  not  hinder  the 
arch-angel's  escape.  When  Lucifer  accomplishes  his  mission 
and  returns  to  tell  the  other  devils  of  his  success  we  are  not 


62  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

frightened  when  they  turn  into  horrible  serpents  and  attempt 
to  eat  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree  which  turns  into  ashes  in  their 
mouths.  No,  we  merely  say  to  ourselves,  that  the  poet  can 
become  very  grotesque. 

Thus  we  might  continue  pointing  out  dead  matter  in  the 
poem.  The  dialogues  in  Heaven  between  God  and  the  son, 
occupying  the  first  half  of  the  third  book  are  examples  of 
God  as  schoolmaster  in  theology.  Then  there  is  Adam's 
explanation  to  Eve  that  the  stars  shine  at  night  because  total 
darkness  might  regain  the  world  and  extinguish  all  living 
things,  and  also  because  millions  of  spiritual  creatures  walk  the 
eartli  unseen  and  need  the  light.  Nor  do  we  care  to  have 
from  a  writer  who  gave  us  some  excellent  tracts  in  defence  of 
divorce  for  incompatibility  of  temperament  the  commonplace 
apology  for  the  wedded  love  of  the  pair,  and  the  address  to 
matrimony.  And  we  are  not  impressed  with  the  story  of  her 
creation  which  Eve  narrates  to  Adam  and  which  is  overheard 
by  the  serpent.  Nor  does  the  account  of  her  falling  in  love 
with  Adam  move  us.  She  had  never  seen  nor  heard  of  a  man 
before  and  hence  had  no  passion,  so  we  do  not  feel  there  is 
any  merit  in  her  story  of  the  birth  of  love  in  her  soul.  No 
woman  ever  found  herself  suddenly  created  and  suddenly  facing 
a  man.  No  man  ever  courted  a  woman  as  Adam  did  Eve. 

That  Milton  took  this  apple  eating  seriously  is  proved  by  a 
prose  work  of  his  which  was  discovered  about  a  century  ago. 
In  the  volume  he  says  that  eating  the  apple  was  the  greatest 
crime  because  it  was  a  transgression  of  the  whole  law.  It 
included  ingratitude,  disobedience,  gluttony,  parricide,  theft, 
sacrilege,  deceit,  lust,  irreligiousness,  pride,  etc.  Adam  com- 
mitted all  these  crimes  when  he  ate  the  apple.  The  poet 
says  that  some  particular  act  in  itself  indifferent  had  to  be 


MILTON:    PARADISE  LOST  63 

forbidden  to  test  man. .  But  some  deed  in  itself  wrong  and 
carrying  within  itself  the  seeds  of  its  destructive  powers  would 
have  served  better  as  a  theme  for  a  poet.  If  Adam  had  been 
forbidden  to  commit  a  crime  and  he  was  disobedient,  we  would 
have  been  able  to  appreciate  the  consequences  of  his  conduct 
and  the  poem  would  have  carried  a  stronger  lesson. 

The  poet  never  succeeded  in  proving  his  main  theme.  God 
knew  beforehand  that  Adam  was  going  to  eat  the  fruit  of  the 
tree,  and  hence  be  the  cause  of  sin  and  death.  Yet  He  allowed 
him  to  do  so,  and  did  not  hinder  him  and  the  poet  thinks  he  has 
justified  the  ways  of  God  to  man  because  God  made  man's  will 
free.  It  was  man's  fault  if  he  could  not  exercise  his  will- 
power. But  God  might  have  made  man's  will  stronger;  it 
would  not  have  involved  any  additional  difficulty  for  Him. 
God  sees  the  greatest  evil  impending  and  instead  of  averting 
it,  allows  the  most  frightful  calamity  to  pursue  man.  Why 
did  not  God  undo  Satan's  work  immediately?  He  should 
have  done  more  than  merely  send  the  angel  Eaphael  to  warn 
Adam.  He  should  not  have  permitted  the  watchman  angel 
to  allow  Satan  to  gain  an  entrance  to  this  world.  He  should 
not  have  allowed  Adam  and  Eve  to  separate  for  thus  Eve  fell 
a  prey  to  the  wily  serpent.  The  poet  has  not  succeeded  in 
showing  God's  justice ;  he  attempts  to  defend  it  only  by  futile 
theological  discourses. 

NOT  does  the  poet  show  us  God's  goodness,  which  consists 
in  allowing  His  only  begotten  son  to  die  for  us.  First,  history 
has  shown  that  calamities  have  harassed  even  those  who  fol- 
lowed closely  in  the  son's  footsteps,  that  great  religious  wars, 
massacres,  persecutions,  have  troubled  those  who  accepted  the 
son.  Secondly,  since  many  horrors  spread  over  the  earth  before 
the  son  came,  why  did  he  wait  thousands  of  years  and  not 


64  DANTE  AND  OTHER  AVANING  CLASSICS 

save  man  sooner?  Why,  besides,  should  God  show  Himself 
such  a  poor  father  as  to  allow  His  son  to  die,  even  though  the 
latter  gladly  offered  himself  up.  Thirdly,  many  of  us  believe 
that  the  death  of  no  one  can  save  the  entire  race.  And  then 
there  are  people  who  believe  that  this  son  of  God  was  simply 
a  human  being,  the  son  of  a  carpenter,  and  that  his  real  virtue 
is  that  he  tried  to  spread  a  pure  though  unpractical  morality 
among  men.  No,  we  do  not  find  God's  goodness  in  the  poem, 
when  we  see  that  after  all  Satan  triumphed ;  he  accomplished 
his  end;  he  brought  about  his  object  to  ruin  humanity,  he 
brought  death  and  sin  into  the  world;  in  short  he  worked 
revenge  on  God  and  is  the  victor.  He  has  never  been  put  out 
of  commission  and  has  continued  to  work  evil  down  to  this  day. 
The  only  thing  that  God  did  was  to  promise  redemption  by 
the  death  of  the  savior.  But  Lucifer  accomplished  far  more 
evil  than  the  good  that  was  to  be  brought  by  God's  son.  Mil- 
ton's God  was  a  miserable  bungler;  he  lost  out  on  the  whole 
and  must  resort  to  apologies  and  promises. 

The  moral  views  to  be  extracted  from  the  poem  amount  to 
the  trite  advice  not  to  be  disobedient,  even  when  you  are  not 
given  a  reason  for  submission.  Milton  who  fought  against 
authority  and  defended  the  murderer  of  a  king,  who  cham- 
pioned the  liberty  of  the  unlicensed  press  and  the  liberation 
of  the  marriage  ties,  in  this  poem  is  the  defender  of  authority, 
the  enemy  of  freedom.  The  poet  was  himself  a  rebel  who  sang 
the  praises  of  subordination.  But  no  definite  lessons  are 
really  taught  us;  we  simply  understand  that  the  poet  means 
we  should  spurn  Satan  and  follow  Christ;  or  avoid  evil  and 
pursue  virtue;  and  this  is  really  vague,  for  he  does  not  show 
a  profound  perception  into  the  nature  of  either. 


MILTON:    PARADISE  LOST  65 

He  offers  us  no  consolation  but  repentance.  He  is  not 
impressed  by  any  other  duty  in  life,  but  the  expiation  of  sin. 
He  attacks  ambition ;  while  Dante  at  least  placed  the  ambitious 
in  heaven,  Milton  puts  them  in  the  Fool's  Paradise;  yet  he 
himself  was  ambitious.  He  does  not  speak  highly  of  love  or 
woman  in  the  poem;  we  know  that  he  thought  of  his  own 
domestic  misfortunes  when  he  drew  Eve. 

Professor  George  E.  Woodberry  has  pointed  out  a  radical 
defect  in  Paradise  Lost,  namely  that  there  is  a  denial  of  prog- 
ress in  it ;  the  idea  of  the  poem  is  one  of  restoration  to  a  former 
state  than  that  of  revolution.  The  epic  becomes  one  of  the 
"  damnation  of  things,  in  which  the  fact  of  final  partial 
restoration  is  present  as  an  intention  and  promise  only.  There 
is  what  makes  it  a  poem  of  past  time,  and  removes  it  far  from 
the  modern  mind."  And  this  is  true.  There  is  really  no  hope 
but  an  angel's  promise.  Everybody's  deed  affects  some  one 
who  is  innocent.  Just  because  Satan  rebelled,  Adam  had  to 
suffer;  because  Adam  sinned  death  came  into  the  world; 
because  Eve  ate  the  apple  Adam  fell ;  because  the  race  suffers 
Christ  was  to  die.  Yet  there  is  so  much  talk  of  free  will  and 
we  see  that  each  brought  consequences  against  which  the  will 
was  unable  to  combat.  We  never  want  to  go  back  to  a  former 
state  of  civilization;  we  seek  to  have  something  different  and 
in  accordance  with  our  new  environment.  We  would  not  have 
the  early  state  in  which  Adam  and  Eve  found'  themselves 
before  Satan  came,  even  if  we  could.  We  try  to  adjust  our- 
selves to  altering  circumstances  and  are  contented  if  we  find 
little  struggle  in  doing  so.  Development,  progress  and  evolu- 
tion are  subjects  not  touched  upon  in  the  poem. 

Milton's  borrowings  and  lack  of  originality  have  been 
pointed  out  by  critics  and  commentators.  The  theme  he 


66  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

chose  had  been  handled  by  contemporary  poets  whose  works 
we  know  he  had  read.  He  borrowed  plots  and  passages  and 
imitated  other  poems  rather  freely.  Students  have  compiled 
quite  a  list  of  poems  from  which  Milton  derived  copiously. 
We  know  that  he  was  certainly  influenced  by  the  Lucifer  of 
Vondel  the  Dutch  poet.  Milton  also  plucked  plumes  from 
the  poets  of  Greece,  Eome  and  Italy.  He  is  particularly  in- 
debted to  Homer.  He  recurs  to  him  again  and  again;  he 
eagerly  appropriates  similes,  episodes  and  descriptions  from  the 
Father  of  Poetry.  Yet  he  derives  most  from  the  Bible,  in  some 
instances  reproducing  passages  almost  word  for  word  and  line 
for  line.  He  also  incorporates  arguments  from  books  of  theol- 
ogy and  draws  on  scientific  works  for  some  of  his  astronomical 
data.  If  we  were  to  consider  only  the  original  portions  of  his 
poem,  by  abstracting  the  borrowings  we  should  have  a  produc- 
tion far  less  bulky  than  the  present  form.  But  it  must  be 
admitted  that  few  could  adorn  what  they  used  as  Milton  did. 
We  are  all  interested  in  Milton's  personality.  We  know 
the  stern  champion  of  English  liberty;  we  sympathise  with 
him  in  his  pathetic  blindness.  We  are  affected  by  his  domestic 
misfortunes  and  his  disillusionments  as  a  husband  and  a 
father.  We  admire  his  resoluteness  and  his  devotion  to  his 
ideals.  But  we  must  not  let  alien  considerations  influence 
us  in  determining  his  position  as  a  poet.  The  time  is  even 
now  at  hand  when  all  that  remains  of  his  work  as  a  poet  are 
some  passages  from  Paradise  Lost  and  a  few  of  his  minor 
poems.  But  what  will  most  likely  happen  is  that  his  prose 
works  will  be  sifted  by  critics  and  we  shall  have  many  pages 
of  impassioned  prose  in  which  he  appears  not  as  a  theologian 
but  as  a  clear  and  bold  thinker.  In  no  work  of  his  does  he 
rise  so  high  as  he  does  in  his  four  treatises  where  he  main- 


MILTON:    PARADISE  LOST  67 

tains  opinions  on  the  subject  of  divorce,  which  even  our 
own  time  finds  too  radical.  In  the  Doctrine  and  Discipline 
of  Divorce  and  in  the  three  pamphlets  which  followed,  he 
wrote  from  his  own  experience;  he  tried  to  support  his 
ideas  by  quoting  too  freely  from  the  Bible,  but  he  gave 
sufficient  proof  to  establish  his  contention  that  incompatible 
temperament  and  contrariety  of  mind  should  be  grounds  for 
divorce.  He,  the  Puritan,  is  so  modern  in  his  views  that  he 
shocks  the  liberal  mind  of  to-day.  There  seems  to  have  been 
a  conspiracy  of  silence  among  critics  to  ignore  these  books  of 
Milton,  because  they  do  not  countenance  the  conventional 
views  of  society.  Yet  the  time  may  come  when  passages  from 
his  divorce  tracts  will  be  on  the  lips  of  all  thinking  men  while 
most  of  the  Paradise  Lost  may  be  forgotten.  Books  dealing 
with  so  universal  a  subject,  offering  a  rational  solution  of 
problems  that  affect  many  people  are  certainly  of  greater 
utility  and  even  artistic  importance  than  a  poem  which  depicts 
situations  that  never  existed  and  gives  a  false  interpretation 
of  useless  questions. 

Milton's  fate  as  a  poet  bears  a  certain  analogy  to  that  of 
Dante.  Paradise  Lost  achieved  its  fame  because  people 
thought  it  contained  a  true  interpretation  of  the  nature  of 
justice,  of  the  origin  of  evil,  of  the  moral  order  or  disorder 
on  this  earth.  It  was  presumed  to  have  embodied  an  unshak- 
able system  of  theology,  an  irreproachable  scheme  of  divine 
government,  and  now  that  the  whole  fabric  has  crumbled,  we 
admire  the  poem  because  of  its  grand  style.  The  pious  con- 
templated with  admiration  a  work  which  in  their  opinion 
summed  up  the  ablest  views  of  life,  and  to-day  people  speak 
highly  only  of  the  style  and  rhythm.  Milton  who  was  looked 
upon  by  many  as  a  divine  seer  who  penetrated  behind  the  veil 


68 

of  the  mysteries  of  life  is  remembered  now  for  his  skill  in 
ornamenting  the  English  language.  He  himself  had  con-^ 
tempt  for  the  lyricists  of  his  time  who  turned  felicitous 
phrases;  yet  we  like  him,  as  does  Matthew  Arnold,  for  his 
"  unfailing  level  of  style."  He  is  rich  in  lines  of  great  beauty, 
and  power.  We  rhapsodise  over  his  sublime  passages,  we  are 
elated  with  his  majestic  sweep.  He  is  expressive  and  many 
of  his  phrases  are  used  by  us  daily. 

But  mastery  of  style  is  not  enough  to  give  one  a  place  among 
the  greatest  poets.  A  world  poet's  production  must  appeal 
to  us  by  the  universality  and  truth  of  the  underlying  theme; 
it  must  be  of  great  human  interest  and  lack  triviality.  It 
should  stir  our  emotions  to  the  very  depths,  it  should  seethe 
with  penetrating  thoughts.  There  should  be  in  it  an  "  alli- 
ance to  great  ends  "  as  Pater  puts  it. 

On  the  continent  Milton  never  won  an  exalted  position. 
Byron  has  always  held  a  higher  place  than  he.  There  are 
several  English  poets  however  who  have  left  us  finer  and  more 
enduring  poetry  than  Milton.  He  unfortunately  attached 
himself  to  dogmas  that  have  since  been  exploded  and  the 
ravages  made  by  them  in  his  palace  of  art  have  been  too  great 
and  have  shaken  his  position  as  one  of  the  world's  major 
singers. 


BUNYAN:    PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS 

Pilgrim's  Progress  has  been  praised  for  many  reasons. 
First,  Christian  in  his  wanderings  through  many  dangers, 
trials  and  temptations  to  reach  the  Celestial  City  is  presumed 
to  be  a  type  of  mankind  in  search  of  truth  and  righteousness. 
The  allegory  has  won  admiration  because  of  the  vivid  pictures 
of  scenes  where  Christian's  hardest  difficulties  took  place,  such 
as  of  the  Slough  of  Despond,  the  Valley  of  Humiliation  where 
he  fought  with  Appolyon,  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death 
and  Vanity  Fair.  It  has  pleased  because  of  the  accounts  of 
the  pleasant  stages  in  his  journey  such  as  the  Interpreter's 
House,  the  Palace  Beautiful,  Beulah  Land  and  the  Celestial 
City  itself.  It  is  a  work  wherein  are  portrayed  characters 
familiar  to  us  all.  Some  of  these  are  Pliable,  Worldly- Wise- 
man, Mr.  By-Ends  and  Great-Heart.  Then  the  narrative 
has  also  charmed  by  its  simplicity  of  style.  We  shall  visit 
some  of  the  places  through  which  Christian  traveled  and 
talk  with  some  of  the  people  he  met.  We  shall  also  extract 
the  lesson  taught  by  the  allegory,  and  shall  see  what  signifi- 
cance if  any,  Christian  has  for  us. 

Let  us  first  examine  the  dangerous  places  through  which 
Christian  passed.  We  come  to  the  slough  of  Despond,  but  we 
do  not  fall  into  it  for  it  is  made  up  of  the  doubts  and  fears 
afflicting  repentant  sinners.  Only  those  who  have  upon  their 
backs  the  burdens  of  sins  against  religion  stumble  here.  We 
do  not  find  ourselves  obsessed  by  the  horrible  thought  that  we 
must  be  saved  by  following  out  the  mandates  of  a  church ;  we 
are  satisfied  if  we  do  our  duty  to  ourselves  and  our  fellow  men, 


70  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

and  if  we  sin,  we  are  willing  to  take  the  consequences  in  the 
natural  evils  that  may  follow  us  for  our  derelictions.  Chris- 
tian's burden  is  not  upon  our  backs  and  we  do  not  sink  into 
the  ditch.  Besides  it  is  not  the  most  difficult  thing  in  the 
world  to  refrain  from  crime  and  sin.  Bunyan  wants  to  show 
us  that  to  do  good  is  so  difficult  that  we  must  labor  with  an 
effort  in  that  direction,  and  that  we  must  be  conscious  of  sin 
continually. 

So  when  we  find  Christian  soon  engages  in  the  struggle 
with  Appolyon  who  is  covered  with  scales,  wings  and  is  belch- 
ing fire  and  smoke,  we  say  to  ourselves :  "  Now  we  have  never 
fought  this  monster.  He  is  the  same  old  dragon  who  is  a 
constant  figure  in  medieval  literature."  We  cannot  under- 
stand why  the  dragon  should  be  symbolic  of  sin  against  which 
Christian  is  struggling.  We  are  not  even  in  suspense  that 
Christian  may  be  killed.  We  observe  with  indifference,  and 
incredulity  that  though  his  strength  is  spent  he  picks  up  his 
sword  and  drives  Appolyon  away.  Nor  is  there  any  vividness 
in  the  description  of  the  fight,  such  as  we  find  in  the  Faery 
Queen.  All  that  the  poet  tells  us  is  that  the  dragon  roared 
and  that  it  was  the  "  dreadfulest  sight "  he  ever  saw. 

To  us  the  allegory  of  good  conquering  evil,  or  religion  fight- 
ing sin  by  means  of  a  story  of  a  man  vanquishing  a  monster  is 
no  longer  tenable.  It  does  not  impress  us,  it  is  not  beautiful. 
We  are  not  overwhelmed  by  Christian's  arguments  with  the 
dragon,  and  his  reasons  for  leading  a  good  life  are  not  satis- 
fying. We  do  not  feel  encouraged  when  Christian"  tells 
Appolyon  that  God  refuses  to  help  us  in  order  to  try  us  out 
to  see  if  we  will  not  cleave  to  Him.  Moreover  we  do  expect 
deliverance  in  the  present  world  instead  of  waiting  for  the 
judgment  day.  We  have  so  many  more  effective  examples 


BUNYAN:    PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS  71 

in  literature  of  struggles  between  good  and  evil  that  we  do 
not  have  to  recur  to  the  dragon  of  our  childhood  days.  We 
have  wonderful  analyses  by  writers  of  struggles  within  their 
souls  and  we  don't  need  these  conflicts  visualized  in  this  form. 

We  find  the  next  terrible  place  through  which  we  have  to 
pass  with  Christian  is  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death. 
We  find  here  the  same  fires,  bowlings,  ditches,  chains,  hobgob- 
lins, snakes,  mires,  that  we  find  in  accounts  of  hell  by  other 
writers.  Thus  Bunyan  means  to  show  us  the  horrible  side  of 
sin,  and  the  inference  is  that  we  must  pass  by  all  of  these  if 
we  want  to  lead  a  virtuous  and  religious  life.  To  us  the  whole 
thing  is  repulsive  and  unconvincing.  We  are  willing  to  look 
at  the  Valley  and  forget  about  the  allegory,  but  we  cannot  say 
that  real  horror  is  shown  here.  We  think  of  more  powerful 
descriptions  we  have  read,  of  earthquakes,  volcanic  eruptions, 
dark  forests,  caves  and  shipwrecks,  besides  which  Bunyan's 
horrors  pale  into  insignificance.  We  never  were  in  a  valley  of 
this  kind  and  we  walk  through  it  unharmed  and  believe  that  all 
these  horrors  here  must  be  products  of  Christian's  diseased 
imagination. 

The  next  obstruction  in  Christian's  way  is  Vanity  Fair.  But 
he  shuns  everything  in  the  fair  that  pertains  to  this  world. 
He  is  averse  to  all  forms  of  pleasure  and  to  material  posses- 
sions. He  shows  us  that  he  will  avoid  pursuits  that  men 
usually  follow.  What  a  splendid  opportunity  the  author  had 
of  giving  us  a  vivid  realistic  description  of  the  fairs  as  they 
existed  in  his  day.  His  sole  object  in  describing  Vanity 
Fair  was  to  point  out  to  us  that  the  eternal  life  is  more  impor- 
tant than  the  pleasures  here.  In  this  part  of  the  allegory 
we  have  the  ascetic  author  trying  to  rebuke  us  because  we 
seek  pleasures  which  it  is  natural  for  us  to  pursue;  we  go 


72  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

with  Christian  here  but  we  linger  and  shout  at  him  not  to 
hasten,  that  the  city  for  which  he  is  bound  is  not  any  more 
picturesque  or  alive  than  this  place.  Bunyan  has  unjustly 
peopled  his  Vanity  Fair  with  innocent  tradesmen  following 
their  natural  calling  in  the  company  of  scoundrels  and  gam- 
blers. But  we  find  that  the  chief  commodity  sold  here  is  the 
ware  of  Rome  and  her  merchandise.  So  the  fair  was  really 
described  in  order  to  attack  Eoman  Catholicism. 

The  redeeming  feature  of  this  portion  of  the  story  is  the 
account  of  the  trial  of  Faithful  and  Christian  for  having 
created  a  disturbance. 

The  sufferings  of  Christian  and  Hopeful  in  the  dungeon 
of  Doubting  Castle  belonging  to  the  G-iant  Despair  are  deline- 
ated to  warn  us  away  from  doubt  in  the  supernatural  and  the 
dogmas  of  the  church.  The  lesson  is  that  if  we  become  sceptics 
Despair  will  urge  us  also  to  commit  suicide.  We  should, 
like  Christian,  escape  by  using  the  key  of  Promise.  But  we 
find  that  we  can  very  comfortably  put  up  in  this  castle  and  make 
our  abode  here  and  not  follow  Christian  any  longer.  We  do 
more  than  doubt;  we  know  that  Christian  is  wrong  in  his 
views ;  we  smile  at  him  for  having  taken  the  journey ;  we  may 
as  well  tell  him  he  is  pursuing  phantoms  and  that  there  is 
only  one  Celestial  City  and  that  it  is  in  the  midst  of  the 
so-called  City  of  Destruction.  We  cannot  depend  on  a  man 
who  fears  investigations  by  the  intellect  which  are  symbolized 
by  this  castle.  We  also  are  annoyed  at  the  conception  which 
gives  Despair  a  wife  Diffidence  with  whom  he  holds  counsel 
in  bed. 

After  we  have  seen  some  of  the  terrible  places  and  experi- 
ences encountered  by  Christian;  we  conclude  that  we  have 
never  been  through  them.  We  may  have  found  it  difficult 


BUNYAN:    PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS  73 

to  overcome  temptation  and  obstacles,  but  we  feel  that  after 
all  these  valleys  and  castles  are  not  symbolic  of  our  troubles. 
We  shall  look  into  some  of  the  more  pleasant  places  in  the 
journeys  and  see  -if  we  have  ever  been  in  any  of  them. 

The  Interpreter's  House  was  introduced  to  illustrate  some 
theological  lessons.  There  is  the  picture  of  the  man  looking 
upward,  his  back  towards  the  world,  to  show  Christian  "  that 
slighting  and  despising  the  things  that  are  present"  he  is 
sure  to  have  glory  in  the  next  world  for  his  reward.  The 
picture  of  the  dusty  parlor  being  sprinkled  is  supposed  to 
represent  the  gospel  cleansing  original  sin.  The  two  children 
Passion  and  Patience  are  well  contrasted  but  the  story  of  the 
unfortunate  professor  who  was  locked  up  in  the  Iron  Cage 
for  eternity  because  he  loved  the  pleasure  of  the  world  and  did 
not  follow  religious  edicts  is  insufferably  poor  in  conception. 
The  poor  wretch  was  even  denied  repentance  by  God.  And 
those  of  us  who  do  not  have  Bunyan's  fanatical  ideas  and  do 
not  shun  life  are  also  apparently  to  be  confined.  The  descrip- 
tion of  the  dream  of  the  arrived  judgment  day  is  vivid  and 
powerful,  but  fortunately  we  do  not  have  such  fancies.  We 
are  happy  to  escape  such  nightmares  as  witnessing  the  open- 
ing of  the  bottomless  pit  out  of  which  issued  smoke  and  coals 
of  fire.  The  best  scene  in  the  Interpreter's  House  is  the  eulogy 
of  courage  as  shown  in  the  man  who  breaks  into  the  palace. 

When  the  burden  falls  off  Christian's  back  at  the  sight  of 
the  cross  we  know  that  Christian  is  seeking  a  life  not  moral 
so  much  as  religious.  He  seeks  not  righteousness  but  obedi- 
ence to  the  doctrines  of  Puritanism;  he  is  not  permeated  with 
a  spirit  of  love  and  interest  towards  his  fellow  men,  but  he 
wishes  to  make  them  believe  in  the  supernatural. 


74  DANTE  AND  OTHEK  WANING  CLASSICS 

We  observe  that  in  the  Palace  of  the  Beautiful,  Discretion 
takes  care  of  Christian.  Here  the  pilgrim  sees  and  talks  with 
Piety,  Charity  and  Prudence.  He  offers  a  very  poor  explana- 
tion to  Charity  for  deserting  his  wife  and  children.  He  also 
sees  weapons  that  slew  the  wicked  such  as  David's  sling  and 
the  jawbone  used  by  Samson.  In  the  Delectable  Mountains 
Christian  was  shown  the  broken  pieces  of  those  who  were  made 
to  err  "  concerning  the  faith  of  the  resurrection  of  the  body  " 
and  lay  unburied  as  an  example  to  others.  Christian  also 
saw  blind  men  walking  about  the  tombs,  victims  of  the  Giant 
Despair;  he  inspected  a  byway  into  hell  filled  with  brimstone, 
and  would-be  pilgrims  who  became  traitors.  He  is  too  much 
entertained  by  seeing  the  poor  wretches  who  were  dashed  into 
pieces  because  they  did  not  subscribe  to  the  belief  in  resur- 
rection. 

The  description  of  Beulah  Land  and  the  entrance  to  the 
Celestial  City  has  always  won  praise,  but  even  here  there  is 
lacking  such  descriptive  powers  as  we  find  in  the  great  French 
Romanticists.  We  have  the  stock  in  trade  objects  wherewith 
ancient  writers  depicted  heaven  in  order  to  make  converts. 
There  are  the  streets  paved  with  gold,  the  ringing  bells,  the 
sounding  harps  and  the  angels,  the  trumpeters  and  so  on. 
When  Christian  and  his  companion  Hopeful  cross  the  river 
wherein  they  leave  their  mortal  garments,  they  are  reclothed 
and  then  the  Shining  Ones  describe  to  them  the  life  of  bliss 
that  henceforth  they  will  lead.  They  will  wear  crowns  of  gold 
and  always  see  the  Holy  One ;  Him  they  will  praise  with  shout- 
ing and  thanksgiving;  they  will  hear  His  voice,  sit  with  Him 
when  he  passes  judgment,  and  partake  in  the  work  of  damna- 
tion. One  sees  immediately  that  the  author's  idea  of  God  is 
idolatrous  and  that  this  God  will  allow  all  who  are  good  Puri- 
tans to  sit  on  the  bench  with  Him. 


BUNYAN:    PILGBIM'S  PEOGEESS  75 

Most  of  us  have  not  been  in  these  various  places  that  were 
visited  by  Christian,  nor  would  want  to  enter  the  Celestial 
City  described.  The  ideal  sought  for  is  unworthy  because  the 
author  seeks  to  make  us  reach  it  by  inculcating  in  us  the  most 
fanatical  theological  doctrines.  He  depicts  to  us  a  goal  which 
does  not  impress  us  as  worthy  of  attainment. 

Let  us  now  observe  some  of  the  people  whom  Christian  meets 
on  the  way.  One  will  note  that  the  characters  whom  Bunyan 
would  persuade  us  are  the  erring  ones  happen  to  be  the  only 
persons  who  speak  with  wisdom.  Those  whom  he  presents 
to  us  for  our  condemnation  meet  with  our  approval.  His 
heroes  bore  us,  and  insult  our  intelligence.  The  worldly  types 
argue  well  and  are  more  convincing  than  Christian.  The 
author  thinks  that  Christian  is  the  victor  in  the  debates,  but 
he  always  is  in  the  wrong.  The  real  sensible  and  human 
types  in  the  book  are  those  who  do  not  reach  the  Celestial  City. 
These  characters  do  not  worry  about  salvation  and  the  judg- 
ment day,  and  are  live  men  like  ourselves,  and  we  take  an 
entirely  different  view-point  of  them  from  what  the  author 
takes. 

We  cannot  help  admiring  Obstinate  for  not  being  mis- 
guided by  Christian  and  we  command  Pliable  for  returning 
home  after  sinking  in  the  Slough  of  Despond.  He  argues 
well.  Why  should  he  trouble  himself  with  the  pains  of  a 
journey  the  nature  of  which  he  has  already  perceived?  The 
struggle  might  be  worth  while  if  one  is  reasonably  certain 
that  there  may  be  some  results,  but  all  that  Pliable  gets  are 
promises.  The  Worldly-Wiseman  is  very  discerning  and  re- 
proaches Christian  justly  for  meddling  with  things  too  high 
for  him.  Christian  does  not  heed  his  advice  to  go  to  the 
House  of  Legality  in  the  Village  of  Morality,  because  it  is 
6 


76  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

too  dangerous  to  reach  on  account  of  a  hill ;  nevertheless  men 
must  have  laws  and  moral  codes  which  when  founded  on  liber- 
ality of  mind  and  charity  of  heart,  can  assist  them  greatly. 

Talkative  is  well  drawn.  But  he  does  not  speak  as  sensibly 
as  the  author  imagined  he  did.  Bunyan  quarrels  with  him 
because  he  does  not  practise  what  he  preaches,  and  not  because 
of  what  he  says.  But  we  feel  that  Talkative  is  too  steeped  in 
error  and  approve  of  his  not  living  the  life  that  he  considers 
the  right  one.  We  are  not  displeased  at  Talkative's  insin- 
cerity. May  all  those  who  think  that  they  ought  to  pursue 
will-o'-the-wisps  thus  refrain  from  doing  so !  But  neverthe- 
less we  have  a  good  portrayal  of  a  religious  hypocrite,  and 
though  he  does  not  utter  as  many  absurdities  as  Faithful,  he 
remains  to  us  a  type  of  the  man  who  talks  one  way,  but  acts 
in  another. 

By-Ends  is  admirable  for  his  shrewdness  and  good  common 
sense.  His  characterization  of  the  Pilgrims  strikes  one  as 
true.  They  are  intolerant  and  believe  that  a  man  must  agree 
with  them  in  every  detail.  Then  they  are  foolishly  on  their 
journey  in  all  weathers  and  they  want  to  accomplish  every- 
thing immediately.  But  By-Ends  waits  for  wind  and  tide, 
takes  all  advantages  in  making  his  life  secure ;  he  thinks  of  his 
safety  and  scorns  martyrdom.  The  characters  Christian  meets 
are  wiser  than  he:  he  ignores  good  suggestions  and  practical 
advice.  For  instance,  why  should  he  not  have  heeded  Demas's 
advice  and  have  digged  a  little  in  the  silver  mine  and  thus 
have  provided  himself  for  life  ?  One  wonders  how  Christian 
subsisted  on  his  journey.  There  is  never  a  word  about  his 
desire  for  food,  change  of  clothing,  he  does  not  have  to  earn 
a  livelihood,  he  is  troubled  by  no  human  wants;  he  never  has 
any  desire  for  such  diversions  as  books,  art  or  sport.  He  is 


BUNYAX:    PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS  77 

not  of  this  earth  and  we  feel  relieved  when  he  reaches  his 
haven. 

The  dogmatic  way  in  which  Christian  and  Hopeful  argue 
with  Ignorance  is  amusing.  They  flaunt  before  him  such 
vagaries  that  we  sympathise  with  him.  It  is  refreshing  not 
to  be  versed  in  all  the  errors  in  which  they  implicitly  believe. 
They  try  to  make  him  feel  that  he  runs  a  possibility  of  damna- 
tion. 

The  heroes  like  Evangelist,  Faithful,  Hopeful  and  Christian 
himself  are  lifeless,  without  passions  or  rational  thoughts. 
They  tend  to  become  abstractions,  shadowy  creatures  to  illus- 
trate some  Biblical  texts.  They  are  not  moved  by  the  ordi- 
nary things  in  life,  they  have  not  human  failings.  They 
walk  blinded  in  their  own  conceit  and  ignorance,  hoping  hopes 
forever  vain,  believing  things  that  will  never  transpire,  seek- 
ing goals  that  do  not  exist.  Their  discourses  are  but  words; 
they  are  frenzied  in  their  imagination,  hopeless  in  their  rea- 
soning, fanatical  and  intolerant.  They  do  not  so  much  attack 
abuses  in  morality  as  man's  refusal  to  subscribe  to  their  own 
pernicious  religious  notions.  One  feels  about  them  as  Atheist 
does :  "  I  laugh  to  see  what  ignorant  persons  you  are,  to  take 
upon  you  so  tedious  a  journey  and  you  are  like  to  have  nothing 
but  your  travel  for  your  pains." 

The  book  is  really  a  series  of  sermons  illustrated  by  alle- 
gory and  symbolical  characters.  At  times  we  have  dry  dis- 
courses themselves  unillumined  by  metaphor.  That  we  get 
many  curious  explanations  of  various  matters  is  a  foregone 
conclusion.  The  central  idea  running  through  the  book  is 
that  of  the  conviction  of  sin  in  which  we  have  all  been  born; 
the  corollary  is  that  we  must  strive  for  salvation  so  as  not  to 
be  consigned  to  hell  on  the  judgment  day.  Bunyan  has  re- 


78  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

corded  in  his  spiritual  autobiography  Grace  Abounding,  a 
pathological  document  in  many  respects  more  interesting 
than  his  famous  allegory,  how  he  came  to  regard  ringing  bells, 
dancing  and  reading  romances  as  wrong.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
to  Bunyan  every  material  desire  smacks  of  sin.  If  we  are 
reposing  in  the  delusion  that  we  are  not  so  sinful  after  all,  he 
seeks  to  remind  us  that  we  are.  He  seems  to  love  sin,  he  thinks 
of  it  all  the  time,  and  hunts  it  out  as  with  a  keen  sense  of 
odor  for  it.  He  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  we  can  have  right 
thoughts  of  God  only  when  we  think  that  He  "  can  see  sin  in 
us  when  and  where  we  can  see  none  in  ourselves,"  and  that 
even  when  we  have  done  our  best  and  stand  before  Him  in  all 
confidence,  our  righteousness  stinks  in  His  nostrils. 

Had  Bunyan  never  possessed  this  deep  conviction  of  sin, 
the  Pilgrim's  Progress  would  never  have  been  written.  Those 
of  us  who  do  not  groan  about  sins  that  we  have  never  com- 
mitted and  who  do  not  look  upon  our  human  weaknesses  as 
odious  crimes,  feel  that  the  author  has  not  narrated  the  history 
of  our  souls.  Moreover  we  do  not  wish  to  be  like  him;  we 
desire  neither  his  mind  nor  his  temperament.  We  do  not 
wish  to  make  much  ado  because  the  noble  in  us  triumphs  over 
the  ignoble;  we  should  not  imagine  we  are  so  saturated  with 
vice  that  to  be  righteous  is  a  great  task.  A  crimnal  trying 
to  reform  or  one  suffering  from  religiomania  may  appreciate 
the  allegory  better  than  the  average  respectable  cultured 
citizen. 

ISTo  consolation  is  ever  given.  When  Evangelist  addresses 
Christian  and  Faithful  before  they  enter  Vanity  Fair  he  tells 
them  that  one  of  them  will  die  there  an  unnatural  death,  but 
that  the  deceased  will  be  the  happier  one  even  though  his  pain 
is  great  "  not  only  because  he  will  be  arrived  at  the  Celestial 


BUXYAN:    PILGRIM'S  PBOGBESS  79 

City  soonest,  but  because  he  will  escape  many  miseries  that 
the  other  will  meet  with  in  the  rest  of  his  journey."  That  is 
all  the  comfort  that  Faithful  has  when  he  is  shortly  afterwards 
scourged,  lanced,  pricked,  stoned  and  burned  to  death. 

We  differ  altogether  from  Bunyan  as  to  what  constitutes 
sin.  He  wants  us  to  act  like  Christian,  to  sever  domestic  ties, 
shun  art,  amusement,  philosophic  speculation,  and  to  become 
pious  and  ascetic.  He  does  not  favor  the  intellectual  or  the 
active  life.  He  thinks  nothing  of  a  view  of  life  that  has  not 
theology  as  its  basis.  We  find  very  little  intellect  in  the 
book.  The  most  intellectual  passage  is  Mr.  Money-Love's 
answer  to  the  problem  as  to  whether  a  poor  minister  may  not 
alter  some  of  his  principles  to  get  a  greater  benefice  and 
whether  a  merchant  may  not  pretend  to  be  more  religious  if 
he  might  thus  get  more  customers.  There  is  something  Ma- 
chiavellian in  his  reasoning  and  we  almost  approve  it  at  heart. 
The  question  under  discussion  is  really  whether  it  sometimes 
is  not  proper  to  avoid  fanaticism  in  one's  views  if  such  a 
course  will  redound  to  the  material  benefit  of  a  man.  And 
those  who  know  the  instability  of  ideas  may  not  be  too  hard 
upon  such  folk  who  after  all  make  up  a  large  part  of  the 
world.  People  have  become  broad  minded  and  do  not  inquire 
to  closely  into  every  one's  religious  views  in  detail. 

Some  of  the  more  liberal  critics  like  Froude  who  admire 
Bunyan  try  to  show  us  that  the  allegory  can  be  appreciated 
by  the  free  thinker  as  well  as  by  the  religious.  But  the  matter 
and  the  form  in  the  allegory  are  so  closely  blended  that  we  can 
scarcely  disentangle  them.  Bunyan  tried  to  transmit  certain 
ideas  and  convictions  and  for  this  purpose  uses  his  metaphors, 
visions  and  character  sketches.  We  can  select  parts  of  the 


80  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

book  where  there  is  little  obtrusion  of  theology  but  on  the 
whole  there  is  little  of  secular  and  artistic  value. 

We  do  not  find  our  experiences  or  lives  related  in  the  story. 
We  are  no  longer  like  Christian.  We  find  types  of  ourselves 
in  portrayals  of  those  who  aim  at  a  goal  without  being  subject 
to  religious  ravings.  We  find  ourselves  in  character  studies 
of  men  who  have  a  worthy  ambition,  who  seek  love,  or  crave 
for  advancement,  or  reach  out  for  justice  or  bear  responsi- 
bilities. Occasionally  a  deluded  revivalist  comes  along  who 
creates  anew  people  in  the  image  of  Christian. 

There  is  a  second  part  to  the  allegory  published  in  1684, 
si x  years  after  the  first  part.  All  are  agreed  that  it  is  the 
inferior  of  the  two  parts  of  the  book.  It  recounts  the  journey 
of  Christiana,  the  wife  of  Christian,  and  their  four  children 
over  the  same  territory  that  he  traversed  to  reach  the  Celestial 
City.  She  blames  herself,  unjustly  however,  for  not  having 
gone  with  her  husband,  although  he  was  the  deserter.  She 
takes  the  journey  because  she  had  a  letter  from  her  husband's 
King.  In  the  second  part  we  meet  some  new  characters,  like 
Great-Heart,  who  no  doubt  was  drawn  from  one  of  Cromwell's 
soldiers.  He  is  always  fighting  giants  whom  of  course  he 
vanquishes.  There  is  a  repetition  of  many  incidents  of  the 
first  part.  There  is  much  theology  here  and  we  have  the 
children  answering  their  catechism,  although  some  pages  later 
on  we  learn  that  they  get  married.  The  places  visited  by  the 
new  pilgrims  are  not  as  troublesome  as  they  were  to  Christian. 
The  interesting  passages  in  the  second  part  are  few.  and  one 
of  the  best  is  the  description  of  Madame  Bubble  who  repre- 
sents the  world.  She  knows  how  to  win  friends,  to  get  along 
comfortably,  to  turn  aside  misguided  idealists  from  their 
quests.  She  makes  people  sell  themselves  and  strive  against 


BUNYAN:    PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS  81 

one  another.  There  are  lacking  in  the  second  part  the  few 
merits  we  have  in  the  first  part.  When  we  think  of  Bunyan's 
allegory  we  always  think  of  Christian's  progress  and  not  of 
Christiana's. 

In  judging  the  book  we  must  not  be  blinded  by  sympathy 
for  the  author.  We  know  that  the  allegory  was  written  in 
prison,  in  which  the  author  languished  for  twelve  years  and 
from  which  he  refused  to  be  released  on  condition  that  he 
refrain  from  preaching.  Nothing  is  more  admirable  than  his 
courage  and  endurance;  few  men  have  gone  through  more 
poignant  suffering.  But  he  was  deluded;  hallucinations 
troubled  him ;  his  intelligence  was  very  slight ;  he  clung  to  the 
theological  dogmas  he  imbibed;  he  never  uttered  an  original 
idea;  he  invariably  embraced  a  false  view-point. 

We  are  justified  in  saying  then  that  the  theme  of  Bunyan's 
work  does  not  vitally  touch  us  to-day.  Although  like  him  we 
are  also  pilgrims  on  a  journey,  we  are  bound  for  other  goals 
and  travel  with  different  companions  and  traverse  different 
places.  We  strive  for  freedom,  for  justice,  for  material  help 
to  ourselves  and  fellow  men.  We  pursue  culture,  art,  science, 
philosophy;  we  are  engaged  in  a  business,  a  profession  or  a 
trade.  We  do  not  wear  on  our  sleeves  a  badge  notifying 
everyone  that  we  seek  either  a  religious  or  a  righteous  life. 

In  Christian's  world  we  find  ourselves  strangers.  We  must 
go  back  a  few  centuries  and  act  and  feel  like  the  old  Puritans, 
but  we  perceive  that  we  become  unnatural.  In  his  world  we 
are  remote  from  our  own  times  and  from  the  times  of  the  most 
cultured  ages  when  the  spirit  of  beauty  and  speculation  was 
abroad.  Here  beauty  is  sin  and  we  are  forbidden  to  enjoy  it. 
Alas !  a  pilgrimage  is  gone  through  with  much  suffering  and 


82  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

toil  and  for  what?  To  live  a  life  in  which  all  that  makes 
it  sweet  is  banned  and  all  that  is  delusive  is  its  goal.  The 
end  striven  for  by  Christian  was  death;  he  sought  to  know 
how  to  die  rather  than  how  to  live.  When  he  reaches  the 
Celestial  City  he  has  become  pure  and  sinless ;  the  bitter  lesson 
is  that  death  alone  will  free  us  from  our  sins.  But  we  do  not 
deliberately  seek  death  through  wilful  choice  of  suffering. 
We  accept  pain  and  dissolution  out  of  necessity,  but  do  not 
make  a  religion  of  them.  We  know  moreover  that  his  effort 
after  religious  salvation  is  mere  striving  after  a  false  ideal 
that  he  had  created  for  himself;  no  power  within  or  outside 
of  nature  demands  that  we  make  ourselves  miserable  to  attain 
unworthy  goals. 

Moreover  allegory  as  a  form  of  literature  has  passed  away 
and  we  do  not  care  about  bloodless  types  who  are  denominated 
by  the  various  vices  and  virtues.  People  in  real  life  are 
both  good  and  evil,  and  literature  to  be  true  to  life  must 
give  us  such  types.  In  real  life  good  does  not  always  triumph, 
whereas  in  allegory  it  must  always  do  so.  Then  when  alle- 
gorizing extends  to  finding  religious  meanings  in  ordinary 
natural  events,  the  reader  rebels.  For  instance  when  the 
children  of  Christiana  are  being  catechised,  among  the 
answers  are  such  as  these:  the  springs  come  from  the  sea 
to  us  through  the  earth  to  show  us  that  the  grace  of  God 
comes  to  us  through  the  body  of  Christ;  some  springs  rise 
out  of  the  tops  of  high  hills  to  show  that  the  spirit  of  grace 
will  also  spring  up  in  the  mighty  as  well  as  the  lowly.. 

Bunyan's  work  does  not  for  one  instant  deserve  the  fame  it 
has  and  Christian  is  not  to  be  compared  as  a  literary  personage 
with  Gulliver  or  Robinson  Crusoe  and  certainly  not  with  Don 
Quixote. 


BUNYAN:    PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS  83 

When  one  reflects  that  the  allegory  has  been  translated  into 
about  seventy-five  languages  and  dialects,  one  is  amazed  that 
a  work  with  so  little  of  the  eternal  values  should  be  so  famous. 
The  best  argument  against  the  intellectual  poverty,  the  artistic 
barrenness  and  the  moral  and  religious  perniciousness  of  the 
book  is  that  it  has  been  successfully  used  by  missionaries  in  con- 
verting cannibals,  savages  and  heathens.  It  is  distinctly  a 
missionary's  hand-book,  and  not  a  work  of  art.  It  reeks  with 
error  and  falsehood,  couched  in  alluring  images,  that  there  is 
little  wonder  it  appeals  to  aborigines  who  are  deficient  in  intel- 
ligence and  morals.  Nor  should  its  wide  appeal  make  one 
think  that  it  has  that  touch  of  nature  which  makes  the  world 
akin.  The  story  that  children  delight  in  the  book  and  read  it 
through  is  mythical ;  many  children  try  to  read  it  but  usually 
drop  it.  If  one  believes  that  Pilgrim's  'Progress  is  an  effective 
implement  to  be  employed  in  spreading  old-fashioned  Chris- 
tianity, let  him  use  it  for  that  purpose  if  he  is  bent  that  way. 
But  let  us  abandon  the  notion  that  the  vision  written  in  Bed- 
ford Jail  is  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  world's  literary  master- 
pieces. 


A  KEMPIS:    THE  IMITATION  OF  CHRIST 

The  Imitation  of  Christ  is  really  an  apology  for  the  life  of 
a  monk  and  hence  falls  like  an  incomprehensible  message  upon 
our  ears.  It  allows  us  to  make  no  compromise  even  between 
the  spiritual  and  temporal  life;  it  impresses  us  as  the  work 
of  a  recluse  who  thought  only  of  illusory  things.  One  might 
take  the  words  "  Abandon  all  reality,  ye  who  enter  here  "  as 
the  motto  for  this  book.  The  author  feels  that  we  should 
exterminate  our  natural  instinct ;  he  enjoins  upon  us  religious 
emotion  to  the  exclusion  of  every  other  feeling;  he  seeks  to 
base  life  upon  a  foundation  of  false  ideas  and  useless  morals 
and  to  convert  the  world  into  one  large  monastery. 

Why  should  we  imitate  Jesus  Christ  ?  Why  should  millions 
of  people  pattern  themselves  after  an  ascetic  and  self-martyr- 
ing idealist  who  lived  in  a  different  age  and  under  different 
circumstances  from  our  own.  If  the  world  were  populated 
with  Christ  types  we  would  have  few  great  inventors,  philoso- 
phers or  scientists.  Great  industrial  and  diplomatic  activities 
would  be  at  a  standstill.  Why  assume  that  there  is  no  life 
without  Jesus,  when  millions  of  pagans,  Jews,  Mohammedans, 
Buddhists,  Confucians,  and  free-thinkers  have  led  happy  and 
rational  existences  without  giving  thought  to  him?  The 
blind  worship  and  grovelling  humility  of  A  Kempis  before 
Christ  alienates  the  reader.  Take  the  following  passage: 
"  What  can  the  world  profit  thee  without  Jesus  ?  To  be  with- 
out Jesus  is  a  grievous  hell;  and  to  be  with  Jesus,  a  sweet 
paradise.  If  Jesus  be  with  thee  no  enemy  shall  be  able  to 


86  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

hurt  thee.  He  that  findeth  Jesus  findeth  a  good  treasure,  yea, 
a  good  above  all  good.  And  he  that  loseth  Jesus  loseth  over- 
much, yea  more  than  the  whole  world.  Most  poor  is  he  who 
liveth  without  Jesus ;  and  he  most  rich  who  is  dear  to  Jesus." 
(Book  II,  Chap.  VIII,  Verse  2.)  A  passage  like  this  appeals 
to  one  whose  credulity  has  been  imposed  upon. 

Again  take  the  last  chapter  of  the  second  book  entitled  "  Of 
the  Royal  Way  of  the  Holy  Cross."  The  author  obliges  us  to 
thrust  ourselves  into  the  pathway  of  pain.  But  we  feel  con- 
vinced that  life  is  not  attained  by  courting  agony.  The  world 
should  forget  the  cross,  the  symbol  of  martyrdom.  But  when 
we  hear  a  man  shouting  "  In  the  cross  is  salvation,  in  the  cross 
is  life,  in  the  cross  is  protection  against  our  enemies,  in  the 
cross  is  infusion  of  heavenly  sweetness,  in  the  cross  is  strength 
of  mind,  in  the  cross  joy  of  spirit,  in  the  cross  height  of  virtue, 
in  the  cross  the  perfection  of  sanctity,"  we  marvel  that  the 
human  spirit  should  apotheosize  all  that  is  antagonistic  to  it. 
We  are  told  that  all  consists  in  the  cross  and  that  all  lies  in 
our  dying  on  it  and  that  there  is  no  other  way  into  life.  Yet 
thinkers  have  given  us  profound  thoughts,  poets  have  sung 
sublime  songs,  painters  have  given  us  soul  stirring  art-works, 
without  the  aid  of  the  cross.  Scientists  have  wrested  secrets 
from  nature  chiefly  by  deliberately  throwing  down  the  cross; 
men  have  led  peaceful  beautiful  lives  without  being  concerned 
about  the  cross.  A  Kempis's  extolling  of  suffering  and  death 
irritates  us.  "  Know  for  certain  that  thou  oughtest  to  lead 
a  dying  life.  And  the  more  any  man  dieth  to  himself,  so 
much  the  more  doth  he  begin  to  live  unto  God."  "  Indeed  if 
there  had  been  any  better  thing,  and  more  profitable  to  man's 
salvation  than  suffering,  surely  Christ  would  have  showed  it 
by  word  and  example."  But  we  do  not  want  to  lead  a  dying 


A  KEMPIS:    THE  IMITATION  OF  CHRIST  87 

life ;  we  do  not  want  salvation  through  pain ;  we  do  not  wish  to 
be  coddled  into  welcoming  suffering,  into  lauding  all  that  is 
destructive  of  life. 

The  keynote  to  the  book  is  in  its  detestation  of  nature.  Not 
a  word  is  said  about  a  beautiful  landscape,  about  feminine 
beauty;  everything  that  is  natural  is  condemned.  It  is  abso- 
lutely an  unnatural  book.  Grace  is  the  be-all  and  end-all  of 
existence.  To  pray  to  God,  to  abandon  the  world,  to  remove 
oneself  from  one's  friends  and  acquaintances,  to  hate  every- 
thing pleasurable,  is  what  grace  commands  us.  We  are  told 
man  is  created  anew  in  the  image  of  God  when  he  completely 
subdues  nature  and  is  suffused  with  grace.  A  Kempis  draws 
an  interesting  comparison  between  the  different  stirrings  of 
nature  and  grace  (Book  III,  Chap.  IV).  After  reading  it 
the  reader  feels  that  if  A  Kempis  is  right  nature  is  a  super- 
fluity in  the  universe.  It  seems  grace  is  not  concerned  with 
anything  going  on  here;  grace  does  not  mind  sorrow,  con- 
tempt, ignorance ;  she  is  satisfied  with  things  eternal  and  con- 
solation in  God  alone.  The  reader  wonders  wherein  are  the 
crimes  of  nature  because  she  is  unwilling  to  die  or  to  be  kept 
down  or  subdued,  because  she  strives  for  her  own  advantage, 
is  willing  to  have  some  outward  consolation,  is  disturbed  about 
losses,  likes  leisure  and  prefers  many  other  things  which 
theology  has  censured  but  which  are  really  laudable.  Let 
grace  have  her  treasure  in  heaven,  let  her  lack  curiosity  for 
knowledge,  let  her  delight  in  rough  things ;  we  will  not  quarrel 
with  those  whom  she  illuminates.  But  most  men  are  so  con- 
structed as  to  shun  her  and  to  follow  the  promptings  of  nature. 
To  act  naturally  and  prudently  is  the  heritage  of  all  men ;  they 
will  not  heed  admonitions  to  be  otherwise  than  what  they 
really  are.  A  book  like  the  Imitation  of  Christ  encourages 


88  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

hypocrisy ;  we  should  not  venerate  a  body  of  precepts  that  we 
know  cannot  be  practised  by  a  normal  man.  Life  is  to  be 
enjoyed  only  by  giving  nature  her  due;  and  there  are  times 
we  should  reconcile  our  philosophy  with  our  lives  instead  of 
conforming  our  conduct  to  the  mandates  of  theology.  The 
Christian  of  to-day  does  not  lead  an  ascetic  life  nor  does  he 
advocate  it;  and  the  book  does  not  represent  modern  Chris- 
tianity. 

A  Kempis's  zeal  for  praising  God  is  so  great  that  he  deplores 
the  necessity  of  spending  some  time  eating,  drinking  and 
sleeping.  "  Would  God  there  were  not  these  necessities  "  he 
exclaims  (Book.  I,  Chap.  XXV,  Verse  8).  What  is  this  con- 
templation of  God,  this  being  united  to  Him,  this  praying  to 
Him?  What  is  this  word  of  God  that  man  should  always 
hearken  to  it?  When  A  Kempis  endeavors  to  attain  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  he  does  nothing  but  seek  to  follow  out 
some  fallacious  ethical  precepts  and  to  be  obedient  to  some 
religious  ceremonies  all  founded  by  man.  This  God-worship, 
this  struggle  towards  God,  is,  as  Feuerbach  once  pointed  out, 
but  self-worship  and  the  attempt  to  realize  human  ideals.  To 
be  united  with  God  really  means  to  get  into  a  state  of  ecstasy 
wherein  you  imagine  that  you  have  nothing  human  about  you, 
wherein  you  think  that  you  are  almost  the  Lord  yourself. 
But  we  can  never  get  rid  of  the  Adam  within  us,  our  bodies 
must  cling  to  us  even  when  we  are  in  such  ecstasy;  the  mark 
of  the  animal  is  always  upon  us.  To  obey  the  word  of  God 
means  to  do  things  that  some  people  formerly  said  were  holy ; 
in  other  words  the  supposed  word  of  God  is  nothing  more  than 
the  word  of  man.  The  realization  of  the  divine  is  but  the 
achievement  of  something  human.  All  the  errors  of  antiquity 
are  forced  upon  us  by  the  statement  that  they  emanate  from 


A  KEMPIS:    THE  IMITATION  OF  CHRIST  89 

God.  One  finds  every  savage  and  every  semi-civilized  age 
attributes  its  unsupportable  fabrications  and  crude  concep- 
tions to  its  deity.  Mysticism  resolves  itself  into  something 
earthiest  of  the  earthy.  There  is  no  word  of  God,  no  possi- 
bility of  being  suffused  with  God,  no  communion  with  or 
experience  of  God.  Man  worships  his  own  ideals,  and  attrib- 
utes them  to  a  Creator.  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  nothing 
more  than  a  monk's  paradise. 

Yet  there  are  instances  where  A  Kempis  moves  us  by  the 
glowing  warmth  of  his  prayer,  bespeaking  the  thousand  agonies 
of  his  soul.  It  is  apparent  that  he  suffered  from  his  seclu- 
sion, from  his  attempt  to  lead  an  unnatural  life.  As  an 
instance  let  any  one  read  the  chapter  called  "  Of  the  day  of 
eternity  and  this  life's  straitness  "  (Book  III,  Chap.  XLVIII). 
Its  fervor  is  unsurpassed.  It  is  a  heart-breaking  complaint 
of  a  frail  mortal  pleading  for  relief  from  sorrow.  It  shows 
a  noble  aspiration  for  an  ideal,  mistaken  as  that  is;  it  pleads 
for  security  from  wicked  thoughts.  It  depicts  the  struggles  he 
was  constantly  undergoing  with  himself  and  he  here  strikes 
a  chord  in  our  own  hearts. 

Nevertheless  A  Kempis  makes  little  appeal  to  us.  His  con- 
tempt for  knowledge,  for  the  world,  for  humanity,  render  him 
an  unsympathetic  creature.  We  study  him  as  a  type  of  ascet- 
icism through  his  prayers  and  addresses.  He  is  almost  a  differ- 
ent creature  from  ourselves ;  he  is  not  possessed  of  our  aspira- 
tions and  ambitions;  he  does  not  seem  to  have  our  emotions, 
frailties,  affections.  He  makes  no  mention  of  the  love  of  the 
sexes;  he  rails  against  friendship;  he  is  not  interested  in  the 
domestic  relations.  Everything  that  makes  life  worth  living 
is  subject  to  his  condemnation.  Were  we  to  follow  his  pre- 
cepts we  should  experience  no  delights  whatsoever.  Were  we 


90  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

to  take  his  counsel  we  would  stagnate  intellectually  and  injure 
ourselves  both  materially  and  morally. 

Yet  liberal  minded  thinkers  have  bowed  in  reverence  to  this 
harmful  author  out  of  deference  to  authority.  A  free-thinker 
like  George  Eliot  almost  becomes  fervid  speaking  about  the 
Imitation  of  Christ  in  her  Mitt  on  the  Floss.  A  positivist 
like  Comte  treasured  the  book  highly  and  constantly  had  it 
by  his  side.  How  powerfully  the  opinions  of  ancient  critics 
sway  us !  Here  are  two  authors  who  separated  themselves 
from  belief  in  ascetic  and  dogmatic  Christianity  and  they 
idolize  a  work  that  reeks  with  medievalism.  They  should  have 
been  among  the  first  to  emancipate  themselves  from  worship 
of  a  book  whose  persistence  gives  superstition  a  strong  weapon. 

More  controversies  have  arisen  to  solve  the  question  of  the 
authorship  of  the  Imitation  of  Christ  than  of  almost  any 
other  book.  For  three  hundred  years  books  and  pamphlets 
have  been  written  to  establish  the  claims  that  have  been  made 
for  Gersen,  A  Kempis  and  others.  A  whole  library  could  be 
formed  of  publications  which  are  concerned  with  this  subject. 
What  futile  learning  and  patient  research  is  often  wasted  on 
trite  themes !  It  is  profitless  to  expend  scholarship  on  the 
question  of  the  authorship  of  any  book,  even  though  a  worthy 
one;  how  much  more  vanity  is  it  to  seek  to  determine  who 
wrote  a  harmful  and  inartistic  book  ! 

The  Imitation  of  Christ  has  been  translated  into  over  fifty 
languages  and  has  gone  through  more  than  six  thousand  edi- 
tions. It  is  almost  incomprehensible.  But  hymn  books  and 
prayer  books  are  being  constantly  reprinted.  And  as  a  matter 
of  fact  A  Kempis's  book  is  not  literature  at  all  but  a  religious 
handbook  that  has  been  palmed  off  upon  us  as  a  literary  mas- 
terpiece. It  is  a  book  of  devotion  and  not  an  aesthetic  per- 


A  KEMPIS:    THE  IMITATION  OF  CHEIST  91 

formance.  Though  the  product  of  a  Catholic,  Protestants 
have  also  found  much  in  it  to  satisfy  them;  in  their  editions 
they  usually  omit  the  fourth  book  on  the  Communion.  This 
little  volume  written  in  Holland  in  the  early  part  of  the 
fifteenth  century  by  the  manuscript  copyist  A  Kempis  has 
probably  done  more  to  keep  alive  medieval  dogma  than  any 
other  book  published  since. 

We  listen  to  him  and  cannot  help  thinking  of  our  Darwin. 
We  read  and  yet  cannot  rid  ourselves  of  remembrances  of  our 
studies  in  comparative  religion.  We  feel  the  promptings  of 
our  physical  faculties  and  wonder  why  the  author  wants  us 
to  resist  them.  He  appears  to  us  like  a  visitor  from  some 
other  planet. 

To-day  we  ask  men  to  lead  good  and  useful  lives ;  we  do  not 
think  it  wrong  to  better  one's  condition;  we  only  ask  that 
people  should  not  wilfully  and  needlessly  pain  their  neighbor. 
We  admit  that  A  Kempis  also  struggles  for  a  high  moral  ideal, 
but  it  is  a  useless  and  often  pernicious  one.  He  lays  more 
stress  on  religious  ecstasy  and  prayer  and  church  rites  than 
on  a  purely  moral  life.  When  he  does  laud  humility  he  never 
dreams  that  it  is  of  earthly  growth  just  as  pride  is  and  that 
there  is  nothing  divine  about  it.  He  is  obsessed  by  the  notion 
that  he  is  closer  to  God  when  on  his  knees  in  his  chamber  than 
when  out  in  the  open  field  observing  the  beauty  of  nature. 
We  say  to  ourselves,  "  This  man  is  mad  for  he  is  living  con- 
stantly in  delusions.  He  mistakes  the  figments  of  his  brain 
for  realities.  The  book  is  a  madman's  Bible." 

No  doubt  the  Imitation  of  Christ  still  brings  consolation 

to  many,  it  still  takes  off  a  weary  load  from  the  minds  of  many 

of  its  readers.     But  it  can  help  only  those  who  subscribe  to 

effete  dogma;  the  reader  must  be  intellectually  fettered  to 

7 


92  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

reap  the  full  benefits  of  perusing  this  work.  The  scholar 
may  find  something  in  the  book  that  appeals  to  him.  For  he, 
like  the  monk,  also  lives  a  secluded  life,  devoted  to  his  ideal 
and  scorning  the  world.  But  he  does  not  necessarily  pursue 
phantoms  nor  does  he  give  up  the  world  because  it  is  a  sinful 
one.  He  studies  in  solitude  because  he  is  really  an  epicurean ; 
he  gives  up  minor  pleasures  for  a  great  one. 

The  book  insists  upon  our  renouncing  our  will,  upon  our 
suppressing  our  individuality,  upon  our  stifling  our  abilities. 
We  suffer  many  of  our  misfortunes  because  we  cannot  will, 
because  we  cannot  bravely  assert  our  personalities.  We  should, 
therefore,  not  lavish  praises  upon  a  book  that  encourages  us 
in  our  weakness  in  developing  our  will  power.  It  may  no 
doubt  be  prudent  to  crush  our  will  for  that  which  is  beyond 
our  power,  but  to  ask  us  to  root  out  our  desires  for  things  that 
we  can  attain  by  a  slight  exertion,  is  unfair.  We  are  creatures 
of  flesh  and  blood  and  in  us  have  been  planted  certain  instincts, 
like  that  of  love  for  knowledge,  art,  honor,  riches  and  beauty, 
and  it  is  useless  to  tell  us  that  we  should  have  contempt  for 
all  the  things  of  this  world  in  order  to  tend  towards  the  king- 
dom of  heaven. 

The  book  preaches  everything  that  is  opposed  to  the  best  in 
Greek  and  modern  authors.  It  tells  us  that  the  more  we  can 
get  out  of  ourselves,  the  more  divine  will  we  be ;  they  tell  us 
that  the  more  we  can  be  ourselves  the  more  will  we  approach 
the  divine.  The  Imitation  maintains  that  the  less  we  rely  on 
ourselves  and  the  more  we  adopt  the  ideas  of  others,  the  nobler 
will  we  be.  Greek  and  modern  literature  recognize  that  we  can 
only  cultivate  the  best  that  is  in  us  by  trusting  solely  in  our- 
selves. A  Kempis  repeatedly  asserts  human  nature  to  be  vile, 
man  to  be  full  of  sin,  not  worth  comfort  or.  consolation. 


A  KEMPIS:    THE  IMITATION  OF  CHRIST  93 

Greater  authors  and  deeper  thinkers  and  higher  moralists 
teach  us  that  human  nature  is  not  vile,  that  man  is  to  be 
treated  as  dignified. 

"  The  scheme  of  the  book,"  said  Thackeray,  "  if  carried 
out  would  make  the  world  a  wretched  dreary  place  of  sojourn. 
There  would  be  no  manhood,  no  love,  no  tender  ties  of  mother 
and  child,  no  use  of  intellect,  no  trade  or  science,  a  set  of 
selfish  beings  crawling  about  avoiding  one  another,  and  howl- 
ing a  perpetual  miserere." 

The  author  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  even  after  we  have  given 
everything  of  ourselves,  completely  renounced  all  the  pleasures 
of  this  world  and  entirely  suppressed  our  own  individualities, 
even  then  we  have  done  nothing.  It  is  at  a  point  like  this  one 
loses  patience  with  the  philosophy  of  life  laid  down  and  criti- 
cal examination  must  stop. 


ST.  AUGUSTINE:    CONFESSIONS 

The  Confessions  of  St.  Augustine  has  been  his  most  perma- 
nent literary  performance.  It  appeals  to  many  not  because 
of  the  abundant  theology  coursing  through  it  but  as  a  psy- 
chological document  showing  the  workings  of  the  mind  and 
spirit  of  a  man  who  is  undergoing  the  process  of  conversion. 
It  has  come  down  to  us  as  a  monument  to  a  sinner  who,  trying 
all  creeds,  embraced  Christianity  and  became  the  most  able 
and  influential  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Church.  It  finds  among 
its  admirers  critics  who  accept  nothing  of  Augustinism,  but 
are  attracted  by  the  story  of  its  author's  misdeeds,  by  the 
account  of  his  intellectual  wanderings  and  final  conversion, 
by  his  tale  of  motherly  devotion  and  by  some  of  his  reflections 
on  secular  subjects. 

Yet  the  reader  who  is  aware  of  what  baneful  influence  St. 
Augustine  has  been  in  spreading  many  false  and  pernicious 
views,  would  prefer  that  he  had  never  been  converted.  He 
did  much  to  ruin  the  intellectual  standpoint  of  humanity  and 
to  plunge  Europe  into  the  dark  ages.  He  indulged  in  more 
fruitless  controversies  and  speculated  on  more  useless  prob- 
lems and  gave  more  absurd  solutions  to  questions  than  most 
of  his  contemporaries.  He  added  so  much  dogma  to  the 
simple  moral  precepts  of  Christianity  and  he  was  the  prede- 
cessor of  the  scholastic  philosophers. 

His  Confessions  is  distinctly  old-fashioned  Christian  litera- 
ture and  must  necessarily  appeal  most  to  faithful  medieval 
Christians.  To  the  adherent  of  any  other  religion  or  the 


96  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

person  emancipated  from  all  revealed  religion  it  presents  few 
attractions.  A  certain  measure  of  sympathy  with  its  views 
is  necessary  to  awaken  appreciation  for  the  book.  It  has  had 
an  unhealthy  influence  in  driving  men  into  religious  mania, 
and  it  has  founded  a  whole  school  of  literature,  namely  the 
books  containing  accounts  of  sinners  and  criminals  who  were 
reformed  by  accepting  dogmas.  One  hears  the  voice  of  St. 
Augustine  in  the  speeches  of  Salvation  Army  speakers.  One 
hears  it  in  frenzied  and  fanatical  revivalists  who  go  about 
driving  whole  communities  mad.  One  finds  an  analogy 
between  him  and  a  man  like  Tolstoi,  who  ruined  his  art 
because  he  turned  his  mind  to  religion  for  solace  for  his  early 
sins. 

One  thing  that  makes  the  Confessions  tedious  is  that  the 
book  is  addressed  directly  to  God,  and  not  to  the  reader.  The 
author  talks  with  the  Creator  as  if  He  were  a  priest  to  whom 
he  is  is  confessing  his  sins.  He  cringes  before  Him  and  coaxes 
Him.  He  assumes  that  God  is  interested  in  every  step  that 
he  takes;  so  he  flatters  Him  and  lavishes  compliments  upon 
Him.  He  feels  that  God  is  a  pious  Christian  who  is  greatly 
concerned  because  men  want  to  follow  out  their  natural  in- 
stincts and  enjoy  life.  He  loves  the  Creator  as  though  He  were 
flesh  and  blood  and  expects  Him  to  cease  from  His  work  in 
speeding  on  the  universe  to  absorb  Himself  in  St.  Augustine. 
His  Deity  is  always  disapproving  of  something  or  other.  We 
become  offended  with  the  fawning  apologies  of  the  author. 
We  want  God  removed  from  the  book  and  not  to  interfere 
with  the  story  that  the  sinner  has  to  tell.  And  those  who  do 
not  accept  the  theory  of  a  personal  God  who  is  sitting  up  in  the 
heavens  and  growing  angry  because  religious  and  moral  sinners 
exist,  feel  that  St.  Augustine  is  talking  in  vain,  that  no  one 


ST.  AUGUSTINE:    CONFESSIONS  97 

hears  him,  that  no  power  cares  the  least  whether  he  had  been 
converted  or  not,  that  no  supernatural  agency  is  weighing 
every  deed  of  his.  The  bringing  in  of  God  has  spoiled  the 
Confessions  as  a  piece  of  literature. 

God  takes  no  more  concern  about  us  than  he  does  about  the 
lower  creatures  from  whom  we  are  descended.  Everything 
demonstrates  that  there  is  no  special  power  outside  of  nature 
herself,  taking  a  particular  interest  in  mankind.  We  believe 
that  men  are  not  being  specially  watched  by  such  a  power,  that 
we  live  out  our  lives  in  accordance  with  eternal  and  immutable 
laws  which  have  made  us  what  we  are,  that  we  have  evolved 
through  pre-existing  conditions  by  necessity  and  that  no  mind 
has  purposely  designed  our  physical  or  moral  nature.  The 
God  who  has  the  human  qualities  most  lauded  by  man  like  love, 
intelligence,  power,  righteousness,  does  not  exist.  He  was 
invented  by  man  as  an  embodiment  of  ideals  which  man  would 
like  to  see  prevail.  The  God  who  created  this  universe  out  of 
nothing,  who  may  be  induced  by  prayer  to  violate  the  laws  of 
nature,  to  interfere  in  our  affairs  and  forward  our  happiness, 
who  is  angry  when  men  sin  and  wants  virtue  to  triumph  and 
who  asks  us  to  accept  Christ  as  His  son  is  a  chimera. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  two  most  admired  books  of  the 
Confessions  are  the  eighth  and  the  ninth,  the  former  contain- 
ing the  account  of  St.  Augustine's  conversion  and  the  latter 
the  story  of  his  mother  Monica  and  of  her  death. 

He  was  converted  by  hearing  of  how  others  less  learned  than 
himself  embraced  Christianity  through  their  reading  of  St. 
Anthony,  the  Egyptian  monk.  He  began  to  see  how  crooked, 
defiled,  spotted  and  ulcerous  he  was  and  he  marvelled  that 
the  unlearned  thus  took  heaven  by  force  while  he  with  his  learn- 
ing wallowed  in  flesh  and  blood.  Then  he  did  much  weeping ; 


98  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

'he  imagined  that  God  was  angry  at  him  for  his  sins ;  remorse 
stirred  him ;  he  heard  a  voice  telling  him  to  take  up  and  read 
and  then  he  read  the  passage  telling  him  to  put  on  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  and  not  to  make  provision  for  the  flesh.  But  the 
seeds  of  his  conversion  had  been  sown  in  him  as  a  child  when 
his  mother  instilled  the  lessons  of  Christ  in  him.  His  nature 
was  essentially  a  religious  nature;  he  found  difficulty  recon- 
ciling this  with  his  wanton  life.  He  had  mistresses,  one  of 
whom  bore  him  a  child.  It  was  partly  a  guilty  conscience 
that  influenced  him  in  his  conversion.  He  needed  theology 
to  purify  him  morally;  otherwise  he  would  have  remained 
riotous. 

We  sympathise  with  his  sincerity  and  his  desire  to  find 
truth  and  to  reform,  but  we  know  that  he  is  deluded.  He 
would  not  live  a  temperate  life  unless  he  felt  that  God  was 
pleased  with  him  and  would  reward  him  in  the  future.  He 
did  not  love  goodness  for  itself,  but  because  it  was  pleasing 
to  Christ.  He  needed  as  an  example  the  story  of  a  monk 
like  St.  Anthony  to  persuade  him  that  life  should  not  consist 
only  of  physical  pleasure.  He  had  to  know  that  God  sent  His 
son  down  to  die  for  him,  before  he  would  lead  a  moral  life. 
St.  Augustine  is  the  type  of  the  well  meaning  but  misguided 
sinner  who  regrets  his  misdeeds  and  needs  religion  alone  to 
reform  him. 

The  world  has  had  too  many  of  these  stories  of  conversions 
to  dogmatic  religion.  It  needs  more  accounts  of  people  who 
have  been  emancipated  from  it,  of  men  who  have  thrown  over 
the  shackles  of  superstition  which  bound  them.  Let  us  have 
the  tales  of  those  who  braved  their  times  and  defied  their 
friends  and  stood  out  clear  of  all  the  theological  trappings 
that  bound  them.  Let  us  listen  to  the  cries  of  relief  of 


ST.  AUGUSTINE:    CONFESSIONS  99 

people  who,  having  lived  in  religious  error,  became  "  heretical " 
and  refused  to  continue  walking  in  darkness.  We  would 
rather  peruse  the  story  of  the  sinner,  if  sinner  we  must  have, 
who  tells  us  that  he  was  reformed  by  the  desire  no  longer  to 
afflict  others  with  pain,  by  a  growing  love  of  righteousness  for 
its  own  sake.  We  are  not  aware  that  morality  must  be  taught 
by  means  of  theology  to  everybody. 

As  a  result  of  his  conversion  St.  Augustine  gave  up  teach- 
ing oratory  and  devoted  himself  to  God.  We  see  his  intel- 
lectual dissolution  immediately.  He  becomes  a  believer  in 
two  very  common  errors  in  the  Middle  Ages,  one  in  the  power 
of  prayer  to  cure  disease  and  the  other  in  the  efficacy  of  a  touch 
of  the  corpse  of  a  saint  to  cure  blindness.  He  tells  us  in  all 
seriousness  how  when  stricken  with  the  toothache  he  asked  his 
friends  to  pray  for  him  and  how  as  soon  as  they  bowed  their 
knees,  the  pain  disappeared.  He  also  relates  that,  when  a 
blind  man  touched  with  his  handkerchief  the  bier  of  two 
recently  exhumed  martyrs,  his  eyes  were  opened  immediately. 
If  St.  Augustine  previously  believed  these  events  could  not 
have  occurred,  is  it  not  to  be  regretted  that  his  mental  powers 
should  have  been  so  weakened  by  his  conversion  as  to  make 
him  place  credence  in  these  miracles  ? 

St.  Augustine  shows  more  of  the  human  touch  in  his  great 
love  for  his  mother.  His  grief  moves  us,  but  the  type  of 
woman  for  which  Monica  stands  is  not  admirable.  She  is  a 
patient  Griselda  type  and  represents  the  woman  who  admitted 
that  she  was  her  husband's  slave  and  did  not  complain  about 
his  wrongs  to  her.  She  allowed  her  husband  to  wrong  her 
bed,  and  she  never  resisted  him  when  angry,  even  by  word. 
She  told  other  women  that  they  were  really  servants  after  they 
were  married  and  that  they  should  not  set  themselves  up 


100  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

against  their  lords.  She  was  fanatical  on  the  subject  of  reli- 
gion. She  was  willing  to  die  now  that  her  supreme  desire,  the 
conversion  of  her  son  to  Christianity,  had  been  accomplished. 
As  an  instance  of  her  wisdom  her  son  tells  of  a  reply  she  gave 
to  some  who  wanted  to  know  if  she  were  not  afraid  when  away 
from  her  own  city.  "  Nothing  is  far  to  God,"  she  said,  "  nor 
was  it  to  fear  lest  at  the  end  of  the  world  He  should  not 
recognize  whence  He  were  to  raise  me  up." 

Before  dying  she  used  to  discuss  the  eternal  life  with  her 
son.  Nothing  of  this  earth  that  was  most  delightful  to  the 
earthly  senses  could  be  compared  to  the  sweetness  of  that  life. 
One  ponders  on  this  spectacle  of  mother  and  son  mutually 
encouraging  one  another  in  illusions  and  yet  one  cannot  help 
but  loving  them.  When  Monica  finally  dies,  her  son  for  a 
while  forgets  his  religion ;  the  natural  man  breaks  out  and  we 
have  a  masterly  recital  of  a  son's  grief  for  the  death  of  his 
mother.  There  is  no  one  who  will  not  sympathise  with  him 
here.  There  is  something  na'ive  about  his  trust  in  God  when 
he  prayed  to  Him  to  heal  his  sorrows ;  and  as  God  did  not  do 
so,  the  bereaved  man  concluded  that  even  though  he  now  fed 
upon  no  deceiving  word,  still  the  Lord  wanted  to  impress  upon 
him  how  strong  is  the  bond  of  all  habit. 

The  asceticism  of  St.  Augustine  is  the  natural  reaction 
which  theology  has  brought  upon  a  man  who  once  loved  life 
and  study.  He  now  looks  upon  all  learning  that  has  not  God 
as  its  subject  as  fruitless.  He  asks  what  profit  did  the  reading 
of  so-called  liberal  books  procure  him.  He  knew  rhetoric, 
music  and  mathematics,  but  he  did  not  thence  sacrifice  to 
God.  In  fact  they  helped  him  on  the  road  to  perdition  since  he 
did  not  keep  his  strength  for  God.  He  mentions  his  studies 
in  Cicero  and  Aristotle,  but  they  were  defective  to  him  because 


ST.  AUGUSTINE:    CONFESSIONS  101 

they  did  not  mention  Christ  nor  help  him  to  define  God.  He 
regrets  having  striven  after  theatrical  applause  and  poetical 
prizes;  he  is  even  sorry  that  he  witnessed  shows.  He  now 
formed  theories  of  life  entirely  in  conflict  with  his  pleasure- 
loving  nature.  He  who  formerly  loved  fame  concluded  that 
to  want  to  be  loved  by  one's  fellow  creatures  for  the  joy  therein 
was  evidence  of  a  miserable  life  and  foul  boastfulness. 

He  decides  that  he  must  not  allow  his  senses  to  make  him 
happy  as  enjoyment  was  sinful.  He  does  not  want  his  eyes 
to  love  fair  and  varied  forms  and  bright  and  soft  colors;  he 
wants  God  to  occupy  his  soul  instead,  for  He  made  these  things. 
He  seeks  not  to  have  any  pleasures  from  eating,  smelling,  hear- 
ing. He  regrets  that  men  make  certain  adornments  in  their 
clothes,  that  they  make  pictures  to  tempt  their  eyes.  People 
follow  these  artistic  products  which  they  themselves  make  and 
neglect  God  who  made  them.  He  objects  to  the  trait  of  curi- 
osity which  leads  men  to  search  out  the  hidden  power  of 
nature.  A  large  portion  of  the  tenth  book  is  taken  up  with 
a  statement  of  his  ascetic  ideals  and  one  is  saddened  to  know 
that  the  effect  of  conversion  has  been  to  make  a  student  of 
philosophy,  an  author  of  an  aesthetic  treatise,  hate  both  knowl- 
edge and  beauty.  He  attacks  pleasures  which  no  one  thinks 
reprehensible.  We  do  not  have  to  defend  the  right  of  the 
eye,  ear  and  nostrils  to  enjoy  their  natural  functions.  Yet 
the  man  who  admits  that  he  once  practised  some  unnatural 
vices  sets  himself  up  as  a  censor  of  all  natural  forms  of  enjoy- 
ment. 

He  is  too  stern  and  when  he  blames  himself  for  simple  boyish 
faults  we  are  amused.  Of  course  he  cried  when  his  elders  did 
not  accede  to  his  wishes;  he  neglected  his  studies  and  played 
games;  he  liked  to  hear  stories  and  see  shows;  he  committed 


102  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

petty  thefts  at  home  and  told  lies.  Though  he  complains  of 
being  beaten  and  blames  elder  people  for  similar  vices  on  a 
larger  scale  he  makes  too  much  of  his  wickedness.  He  even 
deplores  the  fact  that  he  wept  at  the  story  of  Dido's  love  for 
^Eneas  and  did  not  think  of  weeping  at  his  own  want  of  love 
for  God. 

However  the  Confessions  is  not  altogether  the  tale  of  a 
sinner.  St.  Augustine  draws  a  curtain  over  much  that  would 
interest  us;  he  may  be  sincere  but  he  is  neither  frank  nor 
honest.  One  looks  in  vain  for  a  really  true  picture  of  an  un- 
blushing sinner.  He  tells  us  that  he  stole  pears  as  a  boy  and 
moralizes  beautifully  over  the  deed.  He  did  not  want  the  pears 
and  even  threw  them  away ;  he  loved  the  company  and  the  sport. 
But  the  theft  took  place  in  his  sixteenth  year.  He  had  a 
concubine  by  whom  he  had  a  son  and  then  when  she  was  torn 
away  he  took  another,  but  a  few  short  paragraphs  tell  of  his 
illicit  relations.  He  does  not  say  anything  about  these  women 
nor  of  his  relations  with  them.  Women  meant  so  much  to 
him  as  a  young  man  and  yet  he  passes  them  by.  He  never 
entertains  us  with  vivid  realistic  accounts  of  his  sins.  He 
has  not  the  courage  or  openness  of  a  Eousseau.  He  does  not 
dwell  for  any  length  on  any  event  that  tends  to  incriminate 
him.  He  just  mentions  his  sin,  but  what  the  reader  misses  is 
the  graphic  account  of  his  wrong-doings. 

The  Confessions  is  really  a  history  of  his  intellectual  develop- 
ment. He  was  in  turn  a  Manichean,  a  sceptic,  a  Neo-Platonist 
and  a  Christian.  We  pity  him  as  he  shows  himself  in  the 
throes  of  doubt,  always  taking  up  something  new  and  then 
finding  a  reason  for  discarding  it.  That  he  ended  by  accepting 
dogma  is  only  proof  that  he  needed  authority  to  compel  him 
to  hold  steadfast  by  his  doctrines.  The  man  of  ever  fluctuat- 


ST.  AUGUSTINE:    CONFESSIONS  103 

ing  opinions  either  becomes  a  Nihilist,  believing  nothing,  or 
he  attaches  himself  to  a  creed  and  accepts  everything  that  it 
sanctions.  We  are  not  interested  in  the  trite  reasons  he  gives 
for  dropping  and  accepting  various  beliefs;  but  we  love  to 
observe  his  ever  wavering  mind. 

He  read  some  Neo-Platonists  and  found  that  they  identified 
the  Word  or  Logos  with  God.  But  Neo-Platonism  was  for 
St.  Augustine  really  a  step  towards  Christianity  because  of  its 
emphasis  on  idealism.  iSTeo-Platonism  taught  the  existence 
of  the  spiritual  without  the  accompaniment  of  the  material. 
However  this  system  of  philosophy  to-day  is  rejected  by  many 
thinkers  and  moreover  is  not  used  as  a  means  of  defending 
Christianity.  There  is  no  doubt  that  St.  Augustine  would 
have  become  converted  had  he  never  heard  of  oSTeo-Platonism. 
What  attracted  him  about  Christianity  was  the  idea  of  the 
atonement;  the  clause  "the  Word  was  made  flesh "  meant  for 
him  that  God  descended  upon  the  earth  in  the  body  of  Christ. 

The  doctrines  that  had  the  strongest  hold  on  St.  Augustine 
were  those  of  Manicheism.  He  attacks  these  continually 
just  because  they  had  held  him  in  thrall.  The  reasons  he 
advances  for  abandoning  the  views  of  the  Manicheans  may  not 
be  convincing;  he  found  some  astronomical  errors  in  their 
books  and  was  disillusioned  with  one  of  their  teachers,  Faustus. 
Manicheism  with  its  theories  of  light  and  darkness  and  good 
and  evil  fighting  each  other  is  a  dead  issue.  There  are  many 
pages  in  his  book  on  the  subject  of  Manicheism  and  they  do 
not  form  entertaining  reading. 

As  a  story  of  intellectual  development  the  Confessions  is 
trivial;  we  find  retrogression  rather  than  progress.  We  like 
the  St.  Augustine  who  read  his  Cicero  and  Aristotle,  who 
enjoyed  shows  and  loved  life.  We  regret  that  he  never  carried 


104  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

out  his  plan  of  becoming  a  disciple  of  Epicurus  instead  of 
drifting  off  into  theology.  He  might  have  embraced  a  phi- 
losophy which  taught  that  the  gods  do  not  interfere  in  the 
doings  of  man  and  lay  up  no  tormenting  Hades  for  him; 
instead  St.  Augustine  adopted  a  belief  which  taught  that  God 
sets  the  laws  of  nature  at  rest  for  his  favorite,  man,  and  yet 
prepares  a  monstrous  hell  where  people  suffer  for  eternity. 
He  held  wisdom  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand  and  lo,  it  evaporated  ! 
He  records  the  sad  tale  of  his  intellectual  decline  and  believes 
he  has  received  an  acquisition  of  divine  wisdom.  He  plunges 
into  darkness  and  superstition  and  imagines  he  has  found  the 
way  to  eternal  bliss.  He  never  realizes  that  he  has  become  a 
fallen  creature,  that  he  is  now  inferior  to  those  thinkers  whom 
he  once  venerated  and  whom  he  now  holds  in  contempt. 

There  is  something  cowardly  about  the  man  that  is  apparent 
throughout  the  Confessions.  We  see  this  cowardice  in  the 
account  he  gives  us  of  his  desertion  of  his  mother  after  he  had 
persuaded  her  to  wait  for  him  all  night.  We  see  it  in  his 
refusal  to  state  the  nature  of  the  crime  he  committed  in  church 
and  for  which  he  deserved  death,  according  to  his  own  judg- 
ment. He  refrained  from  carnal  pleasure  only  because  he 
feared  the  Lord's  punishment.  He  abandoned  the  sinful  life 
because  he  felt  assured  that  he  would  thus  get  into  the  grace 
of  God  and  attain  the  blessed  abodes  of  heaven. 

The  Confessions  is  of  interest  chiefly  to  the  student  of  relig- 
ious phenomena.  Those  who  like  to  study  the  repentant  tem- 
perament from  the  psychological  point  of  view  will  be  inter- 
ested in  -this  work.  Those  who,  instead  of  trying  to  root  out 
error,  prefer  to  study  it  and  apologise  for  it  will  find  ample 
opportunity  for  doing  so  in  this  autobiography.  But  the 
critic  who  does  not  wish  to  encourage  countless  repetitions  of 


ST.  AUGUSTINE:    CONFESSIONS  105 

a  similar  evolution  to  puerile  doctrines  will  not  look  sympa- 
thetically upon  the  story  of  St.  Augustine's  conversion.  We 
should  condemn  the  triumph  of  undoubted  falsehood  and  not 
be  forever  trying  to  explain  it  away.  We  may  exclaim  that 
all  such  phenomena  as  religious  conversion  are  to  be  accounted 
for  by  enviroment,  disposition  and  other  causes,  but  we  must 
also  consider  the  question  whether  such  conversion  is  worthy 
of  our  approval ;  whether  it  does  not  make  a  man  deteriorate. 
The  Confessions,  while  it  relates  events  unconnnected  with 
dogma  such  as  the  author's  friendship  with  Alypius,  is  on  the 
whole  ruined  by  theology.  The  last  four  of  the  thirteen  books 
particularly  are  unreadable  and  are  omitted  in  some  editions. 
We  are  called  upon  to  applaud  the  spectacle  of  a  noble  mind 
overthrown  by  dogma;  we  are  asked  by  the  author  to  place 
full  faith  in  his  theological  tenets ;  he  recounts  his  adventures 
only  for  the  purpose  of  converting  us  also.  But  we  are  unable 
to  feel  with  him.  We  know  that  his  conversion  was  one  of  the 
greatest  calamities  in  the  history  of  the  world.  He  kept  civili- 
zation back  for  many  centuries;  his  evil  influence  still  goes 
on.  Besides  the  autobiographies  of  Goethe  or  Rousseau  or 
Cellini  his  story  is  insignificant. 


PASCAL:    THOUGHTS 

Pascal's  book  Thoughts  was  posthumously  published  in  1670 
about  eight  years  after  its  author's  death.  These  reflections 
were  jotted  down  irregularly  and  we  have  them  chiefly  in 
fragmentary  form.  They  were  intended  to  be  an  apology  for 
the  Christian  religion.  There  are  sceptical  ideas  here  and 
there  which  show  the  influence  of  Montaigne.  But  it  is  no 
longer  customary  to  regard  Pascal  as  a  freethinker.  He  is 
now  regarded  by  many  critics  as  one  of  the  great  bulwarks  of 
Christianity.  We  know  that  he  believed  in  the  dogmas  that 
are  part  of  the  Christian  religion.  He  was  ascetic  in  his  out- 
look upon  life  and  disapproved  of  pleasure  and  diversion. 

It  is  true  Pascal  admits  at  times  that  we  cannot  actually 
prove  the  truth  of  the  Christian  religion  or  the  existence  of  a 
God.  His  chief  proof,  which  is  really  a  negation  of  proof,  is 
that  in  matters  like  these  the  heart  is  a  better  guide  than  the 
head.  He  is  willing  to  trust  to  his  instincts;  he  is  confident 
that  he  cannot  err  here.  He  assumes  that  he  would  not  have 
been  made  to  feel  instinctively  that  the  Christian  religion  was 
true  had  it  not  been  so.  He  claims  that  the  heart  gives  us 
knowledge  of  first  principles,  that  we  know  for  instance  there 
are  three  dimensions  in  space  and  that  numbers  are  infinite, 
not  through  our  reason,  but  by  instinctive  knowledge.  This 
of  course  is  not  so.  We  may  feel  something  instinctively 
to-day  but  back  in  the  distant  ages  it  was  a  process  of  reasoning 
which  made  our  ancestors  accept  particular  conclusions.  There 
was  a  reason  once  assigned  for  every  belief ;  we  continue  cling- 
ing to  the  theory  long  after  we  have  discovered  the  fallacy  of 
8 


108  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

the  arguments  that  originally  supported  it.  A  former  method 
of  thinking  influences  us  in  our  "  instinctive  "  feeling  to-day. 

To  call  upon  the  heart  as  justification  for  a  belief  is  the  last 
resort  of  one  who  admits  that  his  faith  appears  hopeless  from 
the  point  of  view  of  reason.  The  savage  who  believes  in  idols 
may  argue  in  the  same  manner  as  Pascal  does.  Belief  in 
witchcraft,  ghosts,  devils  was  originally  supported  by  proof 
and  finally  became  part  of  the  instinctive  knowledge  of  some 
people.  We  feel  assured  of  the  "  truth  "  of  certain  matters 
that  are  really  false,  only  because  our  emotions  have  been 
trained  and  prejudiced  to  feel  that  way  for  ages.  A  Moham- 
medan or  Jew  does  not  feel  in  his  heart  that  God  had  a  son 
who  had  to  die  to  save  mankind.  Just  as  one's  conscience 
may  annoy  him  if  he  has  transgressed  some  trivial  religious 
rites  because  it  had  been  formed  that  way  by  many  ages  of 
religious  education,  so  one  may  feel  that  the  false  religion 
he  was  born  in  is  veracity  itself. 

It  is  true,  the  emotions  are  often  the  only  guide  for  us.  A 
man  who  is  hungry  does  not  reason  that  he  ought  to  eat  any 
more  than  does  one  who  comes  in  contact  with  something  that 
causes  him  pain,  argue  that  he  ought  to  withdraw  his  body 
from  the  obnoxious  object.  Here  instinct  is  a  true  guide. 
But  how  different  from  that  of  which  Pascal  speaks,  which  is 
to  reveal  to  us  truth  in  intellectual  matters !  It  does  not  follow 
that  everything  my  heart  would  like  to  believe  is  true.  I 
naturally  want  to  converse  with  the  dead  ones  I  love,  but  I 
cannot  be  sure  that  I  will  do  so  because  I  am  so  inclined.  I 
may  be  disappointed  with  the  injustice  in  this  world,  but  that 
does  not  prove  that  there  must  be  another  perfect  world,  because 
I  feel  there  should  be  one.  Let  us  face  the  truth  that  nature 


PASCAL  :    THOUGHTS  109 

does  not  concern  herself  with  our  desires  nor  take  any  sugges- 
tions from  us  as  to  how  this  universe  should  be  conducted. 

So  it  is  untrue  to  say  that  the  heart  and  not  the  reason 
proves  to  us  the  truth  of  Christianity  and  the  existence  of  a 
personal  God ;  that  the  heart  should  be  trusted  in  its  adoption 
of  faith ;  that  we  should  try  to  know  things  not  by  the  effort 
of  the  understanding  but  by  the  simple  submission  of  the 
reason.  No  doubt  the  mind  is  limited,  but  that  is  no  excuse 
for  believing  what  is  utterly  repugnant  to  it.  It  is  our  guide 
in  dismissing  absurdities  even  though  it  does  not  disclose  to  us 
all  knowledge. 

One  of  the  most  famous  passages  in  Pascal  shows  us  that 
we  ought  to  accept  God,  by  means  of  the  analogy  of  a  wager. 
He  says  that  by  believing  in  a  God  one  has  everything  to  gain 
and  nothing  to  lose,  that  we  should  prefer  risking  our  single 
brief  life  for  the  possibility  of  gaining  eternity.  Pascal  holds 
that  it  is  better  to  be  on  the  safe  side  and  to  adopt  a  belief  in 
which  there  is  no  harm  and  possibly  rewards  for  accepting  it. 
You  may  suffer  an  eternity  of  pains  by  being  a  non-believer, 
so  do  not  undertake  the  risk.  But  other  religious  sects  tell  us 
we  are  lost  if  we  do  not  accept  their  dogmas  and  the  gods  and 
the  leaders  whom  they  worship.  They  also  may  apply  the 
analogy  of  the  wager  in  making  us  adopt  their  faiths.  But 
why  should  I  be  placed  in  the  position  of  forcing  a  belief  upon 
myself  because  its  upholders  start  with  premises  which  I 
reject  from  the  start.  One  may  as  well  make  me  believe  in 
demons  and  mythical  creatures  by  telling  me  that  it  is  most 
advisable  not  to  doubt  their  existence,  since  if  they  do  exist 
they  may  torture  me  after  I  am  dead.  To  frighten  one  into  a 
religion  is  the  most  primitive  way  of  spreading  it,  but  fear 
does  not  have  any  effect  upon  those  who  immediately  sweep 


110  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

away  certain  conclusions.  If  the  wager  theory  governed  UP  in 
making  us  receive  articles  of  faith  it  could  be  utilized  for  any 
creed  and  indeed  for  all  absurdities  that  have  sprung  up  in 
the  breasts  of  mankind.  Many  critics  have  dismissed  the 
wager-idea  of  Pascal  with  a  shake  of  the  head. 

The  keynote  of  Pascal's  religion  is  the  corruption  of  human 
nature;  he  dwells  on  it  constantly;  he  has  not  the  slightest 
doubt  that  man  is  fallen  from  a  higher  state  and  is  vile.  He 
admits  that  we  cannot  conceive  the  transmission  of  Adam's 
sin  to  us  but  he  is  satisfied  that  we  are  miserable  and  corrupt 
and  that  we  can  be  saved  by  Jesus.  He  admits  it  is  unjust 
that  we  should  suffer  for  Adam's  sin  and  yet  asserts  that  with- 
out this  mystery  we  are  incomprehensible  to  ourselves,  and  that 
God  has  concealed  the  knot  which  would  untie  this  mystery, 
to  render  the  difficulty  of  our  existence  more  unintelligible  to 
us.  Thus  Pascal  simply  makes  statements  which  have  nothing 
to  support  them  and  adopts  as  the  corner-stone  of  his  religion 
an  exploded  dogma.  He  tries  to  balance  our  corruption  with 
a  certain  divinity  that  he  says  exists  in  us.  Now  man  is 
neither  divine  nor  corrupt.  He  is  not  a  fallen  creature  nor 
can  he  ever  rise  to  be  a  god.  He  has  evolved  from  lower 
creatures,  is  a  natural  product  of  nature  just  as  all  other 
living  creatures  are,  and  he  calls  that  sin  which  either  causes 
pain  to  some  one  or  violates  a  custom. 

Pascal  is  fascinated  by  the  two  extremes  in  man's  nature, 
his  corruption  and  his  capability  of  being  saved.  He  com- 
ments on  both  the  brutishness  and  greatness  of  man.  He 
maintains  that  only  through  the  Christian  religion  does  man 
learn  his  true  state.  But  the  reader  wonders  whither  all  this 
dogmatizing  leads,  what  it  solves.  Man  will  continue  as  before 
to  satisfy  his  natural  desires,  seek  diversion  and  think  on 


PASCAL:    THOUGHTS  111 

subjects  that  are  of  material  interest  to  him.  The  greatness 
of  a  religion  is  not  proved  by  its  assumption  that  man  is  vilest 
of  the  vile  and  yet  may  become  divine. 

If  Pascal  had  only  known  that  we  have  the  marks  of  the  brute 
upon  us  even  more  than  he  imagined  and  that  we  possess 
still  in  our  bodies  rudimentary  organs  which  we  once  used  in 
a  wild  stage  !  If  he  could  but  have  known  that  in  spite  of  our 
animal  nature  most  of  us  do  not  consider  ourselves  corrupt 
and  born  in  sin  but  decent  though  imperfect !  We  try  to 
avoid  paining  a  neighbor  purposelessly  and  transgressing 
against  our  sense  of  justice.  In  the  future  no  system  of 
thought  will  interest  us  that  is  based  on  the  fundamental 
corruption  presumed  to  be  in  man.  People  are  probably 
more  the  victims  of  stupidity,  convention  and  necessity  than 
actually  wicked  for  the  mere  sake  of  being  wicked. 

Pascal  tried  to  defend  miracles  that  we  cannot  accept. 
We  know  he  believed  that  his  niece's  disease  of  the  eye  was 
cured  by  a  touch  from  the  thorn  of  the  crown  which  it  was 
supposed  that  the  savior  had  worn.  He  held  that  the  best 
proof  of  the  Biblical  miracles  was  in  the  very  fact  that  there 
had  been  made  false  claims  for  other  miracles  which  were  not 
true.  He  is  wroth  at  those  who  deny  the  virgin  birth  and 
resurrection  as  if  they  were  impudent.  He  thinks  when  he 
tells  us  that  a  hen  lays  eggs  without  a  cock,  he  has  answered 
the  objection  of  the  virgin  birth,  but  he  omits  to  state  that 
the  hen's  eggs  will  not  hatch.  He  thinks  he  demolishes  the 
disbelief  in  resurrection  by  asking  whether  birth  is  not  more 
miraculous  than  a  return  to  one's  being.  Theologians  to-day 
do  not  use  Pascal's  arguments  in  support  of  miracles. 

His  views  on  Jesus  Christ  are  medieval.  To  him  Christ 
is  the  center  to  which  all  tends;  he  who  knows  Christ  knows 


112  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

the  reason  of  all  things.  Pascal  abhors  any  one  who  seeks 
God  apart  from  Jesus.  We  know  God  only  by  Jesus  and  by 
Him  we  prove  God.  We  know  ourselves  by  Jesus  Christ  and 
apart  from  Christ  we  know  neither  life  nor  death  nor  God 
nor  ourselves.  In  short  Christ  is  God  Himself.  Our  prayers 
and  virtues  are  abominations  before  God  if  they  are  not  of 
Jesus  Christ.  Pascal  dislikes  the  deist  as  well  as  the  atheist. 
Thus  Pascal  descends  into  theology  and  much  of  his  Thoughts 
is  not  within  the  sphere  of  literature. 

How  weak  are  his  arguments  against  the  sceptics !  Indeed 
he  occasionally  and  unintentionally  gives  arguments  in  favor 
of  their  views,  hence  it  was  concluded  by  some  that  he  was  a. 
freethinker.  He  tries  to  use  arguments  that  are  against  his 
faith  in  support  of  it.  The  fact  that  there  are  more  religions 
than  one,  is  used  by  him  to  show  that  only  one  religion,  the 
Christian,  can  be  true;  for  if  there  were  only  one  religion  it 
would  have  been  too  easily  recognized !  The  truth  of  religion 
can  be  seen,  according  to  Pascal,  in  its  very  obscurity,  in  the 
little  light  we  have  of  it  and  in  our  indifference  to  accepting 
it.  God  has  willed  to  hide  Himself  from  some  because  they 
are  unworthy,  and  He  has  revealed  Himself  to  others.  There 
is  no  reason  for  all  this  except  that  so  He  willed.  But  most 
people  are  justified  in  believing  that  when  a  religion  is  given 
to  save  mankind  and  a  redeemer  is  sent  down,  the  eyes  of  men 
should  have  been  opened  by  that  very  God  who  wished  to  save 
them.  Nor  should  that  God  conceal  His  true  creed  among 
other  false  ones  so  that  it  should  be  difficult  for  men  to  know 
which  is  the  true  one.  Why  should  God  endeavor  to  save  men 
and  yet  set  up  obstacles  that  might  have  been  easily  removed  ? 
Alas,  Pascal  does  not  understand  that  all  religions  have  grown 
up  in  the  same  way,  that  they  represent  the  ideals  of  their 


PASCAL:   THOUGHTS  113 

creators,  that  they  are  all  fitted  in  part  for  those  who  believe 
in  them  and  that  they  all  abound  in  some  falsehoods.  He 
does  not  see  that  it  matters  little  to  Nature  what  men  believe 
and  that  some  religions  are  ruining  men  whom  they  are  sup- 
posed to  be  saving,  and  he  does  not  understand  it  is  man  who 
has  made  God  in  his  own  image.  Yet  he  occasionally  bestirs 
himself  and  exclaims  that  his  proofs  are  not  conclusive.  He 
admits  that  he  does  not  see  everywhere  the  marks  of  a  Creator 
although  he  is  sure  of  the  divinity  of  Christ.  He  confesses 
that  even  the  proofs  of  Christianity  are  not  convincing,  but 
not  unreasonable;  still  he  undertakes  to  defend  belief  in  the 
supernatural.  He  is  inferior  intellectually  to  Montaigne  and 
Spinoza  because  they  cast  dogma  and  revelation  aside. 

His  mind  delighted  in  paradoxes  and  contradictions  and  we 
see  that  he  has  accepted  his  beliefs  beforehand  and  then  sought 
proof  for  them  instead  of  being  led  to  them  by  evidence.  Not 
many  came  so  near  grasping  the  truth  and  then  let  it  elude 
them.  The  very  reflections  that  drove  others  to  discard  dogma 
persuaded  him  to  cling  to  it  all  the  closer.  Even  the  existence 
of  evil  was  used  by  him  to  defend  religion.  He  saw  man's 
position  in  the  universe  and  perceived  man's  failings  as  a 
thinking  being  and  he  therefore  concluded  that  Christ  was 
divine  and  had  to  save  man.  No  one  was  keener  and  yet 
more  illogical  than  Pascal. 

When  he  compared  man's  rank  in  nature  to  a  nonentity  as 
contrasted  with  infinity,  to  a  universe  contrasted  with  a 
nonentity,  we  wonder  how  Pascal  could  entertain  the  idea 
that  man  is  the  be-all  and  end-all  of  this  universe,  that  God 
Himself  died  for  him.  Pascal  looked  out  mentally  into  re- 
motest corners  of  the  universe;  he  contemplated  the  most 
invisible  atom.  Yet  he  could  not  perceive  man  was  but  a 


114  DANTE  AND  OTHEK  WANING  CLASSICS 

link  in  the  chain  of  nature  and  that  vanity  makes  him  believe 
that  he  is  an  exception  to  all  the  natural  laws.  Pascal  held 
some  liberal  philosophic  views  but  nevertheless  adopted  reac- 
tionary theological  conceptions. 

He  intended  to  be  an  apologist  for  Christianity  but  he 
really  did  not  advance  any  plausible  and  convincing  argument 
in  its  favor.  He  simply  concluded  that  he  felt  this  belief 
must  be  true.  He  even  refused  to  accept  proofs  of  religion 
from  the  works  of  nature  herself.  He  did  a  service  to  man- 
kind in  rejecting  such  testimony  but  he  did  not  realize  what 
a  weapon  he  put  in  the  hands  of  sceptics  when  he  stated  that 
to  try  to  prove  the  existence  of  a  God  from  the  works  of  nature 
herself  shows  religion  has  but  weak  proofs.  He  also  main- 
tains that  in  the  attempt  to  prove  God's  existence  metaphysi- 
cally we  see  the  evil  results  of  trying  to  learn  of  God  without 
Christ,  to  communicate  with  God  without  a  mediator.  Every 
argument  men  have  used  to  prove  God's  existence  he  finds 
faulty  and  he  does  not  present  any  stronger  one  himself. 
How  illogical  it  is  to  say  we  cannot  prove  God's  existence  and 
then  to  assert  we  need  Christ  to  know  Him  without  showing 
conclusively  first  that  we  can  know  Him  through  Christ; 
nature  should  at  least  testify  to  the  existence  of  God  in  Christ, 
if  she  does  not  to  that  of  God. 

What  inane  conclusions  he  arrived  at  when  he  wondered 
about  the  riddle  of  man's  existence !  He  feels  that  there  is 
an  eternity  and  that  man  should  not  be  indifferent  to  it.  He 
argues  thus:  Perhaps  torments  face  you;  this  life  is  very 
likely  a  preparation  for  a  future  life ;  it  may  be  a  dream  from 
which  we  will  awake  in  death.  The  immortality  of  the  soul 
is  an  established  fact  and  people  should  be  thinking  about  it 
all  the  time.  It  is  not  proper  that  we  should  act  as  we  often 


PASCAL  :    THOUGHTS 

do  if  the  soul  is  immortal.  How  stupid  must  be  the  man  who 
does  not  reflect  what  will  become  of  him!  In  short  when 
Pascal  troubles  himself  with  these  questions  he  does  it  with 
his  mind  perverted  by  works  on  theology.  He  does  it  with 
a  certain  morbidity,  he  becomes  pathological  and  we  cannot 
enter  into  his  way  of  feeling. 

Men  to-day  are  willing  to  place  confidence  in  the  scheme  of 
things  and  to  take  for  granted  that  they  will  not  be  damned. 
We  wish  to  have  our  lives  here  free  from  pain  and  believe  that 
we  should  not  ascribe  a  deliberately  evil  purpose  to  nature 
when  she  really  has  none  at  all.  We  feel  that  in  love  and 
nature  and  art  we  have  our  delights  and  we  do  not  want  to  be 
groaning  needlessly  about  futile  fears.  Why  let  Pascal  per- 
suade us  to  inflict  misery  upon  ourselves  ?  Why  let  him  give 
to  us,  under  the  pretext  of  trying  to  stir  us  up  into  philosophic 
speculation  as  to  our  destiny,  the  cruelest  and  falsest  inventions 
of  religious  maniacs,  a  belief  in  a  hell  ?  We  are  not,  like  Pas- 
cal, miserable  because  we  don't  know  what  may  become  of  us 
after  death.  He  is  aware  that  in  trying  to  arouse  us  to  think 
about  our  future  after  death  he  employs  the  strongest  weapon 
that  was  instrumental  in  winning  men  to  religion  in  the  past. 
But  we  do  not  believe  that  nature  thinks  mankind  or  the 
church  important  enough  for  her  to  lay  up  a  special  hell  for 
men  who  have  not  led  a  life  sanctioned  by  the  church.  Pascal 
does  not  for  a  moment  suspect  that  what  won't  happen  to 
animals  may  not  happen  to  man.  Xay,  he  finds  that  when 
men  reason  out  that  they  should  be  indifferent  to  the  question 
of  their  future  life,  this  in  itself  redounds  to  the  glory  of 
religion  and  strengthens  it. 

Pascal  does  not  appeal  to  us  when  he  criticises  us  for  seek- 
ing diversions,  when  he  would  hinder  us  from  finding  joy  in 


116  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

life.  He  claims  that  pleasure  and  sport  are  deceptive  for  we 
indulge  in  them  to  forget  ourselves  and  to  avoid  thinking  of 
our  destiny.  But  the  only  realities  in  life  are  the  joys  that 
we  experience,  the  love  we  feel,  the  good  we  accomplish,  the 
work  we  perform.  Let  the  unseen  world  take  care  of  itself.  It 
may  have  suited  the  unfortunate  Pascal  to  complain  that  his 
sister  derived  too  much  pleasure  in  loving  her  child;  it  may 
have  pleased  him  to  torture  himself  by  wearing  an  iron  girdle 
with  spikes  which  he  occasionally  pressed  to  hurt  him.  But 
we  know  that  he  made  a  philosophy  out  of  his  love  of  pain. 
He  worshipped  sickness  thinking  it  the  natural  state  of  a 
Christian.  Sickness  was  to  him  a  blessing  for  it  naturally 
made  him  shun  all  worldly  passions.  We  can  then  understand 
why  he  hates  the  theater  and  all  other  amusements.  Nor 
does  he  believe  in  love  at  all.  He  wants  you  to  love  only  God, 
and  not  your  fellow  creatures ;  he  thinks  whatever  is  pleasing 
to  man  is  obnoxious  to  God.  He  did  not  want  to  enjoy  eating ; 
he  made  a  blessing  out  of  poverty;  he  felt  an  aversion  to  his 
former  studies  in  science  and  mathematics  because  they  did 
not  refer  to  nor  were  concerned  with  God. 

One  learns  how  faithful  a  believer,  how  literal  a  Christian 
Pascal  was  on  reading  his  prayer  for  the  right  use  of  sickness, 
and  his  views  on  death,  when  his  father  died.  These  essays 
appear  in  some  editions  of  the  Thoughts.  He  does  not  look 
upon  death  as  natural  but  as  something  imposed  upon  men  to 
expiate  their  sins.  Death  is  no  evil  but  is  really  the  begin- 
ning of  life.  Death  with  Jesus  Christ  is  a  joy,  lovely  and 
holy.  Death  is  not  natural  nor  the  result  of  necessity  but  of 
a  decree  of  Divine  Providence,  pre-ordained  by  God,  etc. 
What  a  perversion  of  the  human  mind !  There  is  hardly  any- 
thing like  it  in  literature.  Pascal  deliberately  allowed  others 


PASCAL:    THOUGHTS  117 

inferior  to  him  intellectually  to  do  his  thinking  for  him  and 
to  foist  upon  him  such  mad  views. 

Also  note  the  passionate  prayer  where  he  is  imagining  that 
some  deity  is  angry  with  him  for  leading  a  perfectly  natural 
life.  He  looks  to  God  as  to  an  unreasonable  tyrant  and  he 
prostrates  and  humiliates  himself  before  Him  and  attributes 
to  deity  a  character  that  is  outrageous  and  brutal.  God  is  to 
Pascal  a  punisher  of  sinners  and  nothing  else.  He  may  be 
appeased  by  prayer  and  then  send  down  His  grace.  Pascal 
prays  neither  for  health  nor  life  nor  sickness  nor  death  but 
for  anything  that  might  be  advantageous  to  God's  glory  and 
his  own  salvation.  Why  should  sickness  be  necessary  to  in- 
crease God's  glory  or  Pascal's  salvation?  Why  shout  to  this 
deity  as  if  one  were  a  contemptible  worm  and  ask  to  be  for- 
given for  things  about  which  the  deity  is  not  concerned? 
Poor  Pascal !  how  tragically  sincere  he  was  in  this  prayer ! 
How  it  distils  pain,  yet  how  it  seethes  with  loathsome  doc- 
trines !  He  does  not  ask  for  exemption  from  pain  but  for 
religious  consolation  along  with  his  pain. 

Many  of  Pascal's  proofs  rest  on  the  Scriptures  them- 
selves. He  does  not  regard  them  as  a  series  of  books  written 
by  men  at  different  times  and  liable  to  error.  Of  course 
he  considers  the  world  a  few  thousand  years  old  and  finds 
proof  of  the  creation  in  this  way.  "  Shem,  who  saw  Lamech, 
who  saw  Adam,  saw  also  Jacob,  who  saw  those  who  saw 
Moses."  He  believes  that  Adam  was  the  witness  and  guar- 
dian of  the  promise  concerning  the  savior  and  that  many 
other  characters  in  the  Old  Testament  had  a  supernatural 
power  in  being  able  to  describe  him  and  foretell  his  existence. 
Pascal  should  not  have  tried  to  prove  his  case  by  falling  back 
on  the  Bible,  for  those  who  accept  it  as  the  word  of  God  need 


118  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

nothing  else  to  convince  them ;  and  those  who  look  upon  it  as 
a  collection  of  ancient  literature  and  not  a  book  of  Divine 
Revelation  repudiate  Pascal's  examples  from  it. 

He  thinks  because  some  philosophers  are  mistaken  in  their 
views  and  others  admit  their  inability  to  solve  all  problems, 
that  therefore  philosophy  is  a  failure  and  will  not  console 
man.  He  forgets  that  what  he  himself  does  is  to  accept 
theology  instead  of  philosophy  and  probably  because  it  im- 
pudently claims  to  know  the  answers  to  the  most  mysterious 
questions,  whereas  it  is  really  far  more  mistaken  than  most 
systems  of  philosophy.  But  to  some  people  the  rational  ideas 
of  great  thinkers  are  more  consoling  and  give  them  more  of 
an  insight  into  truth  than  theology. 

Many  cultured  people  have  no  faith  in  revealed  religion, 
although  they  have  many  emotions  in  common  with  religious 
people.  They  may  be  impressed  with  the  helplessness  of 
man  in  the  face  of  calamities;  with  his  blind  despair  when 
confronted  with  the  death  of  those  he  loves.  Almost  every 
intelligent  person  at  times  wonders  about  the  riddle  of  exist- 
ence and  tries  some  solution.  Many  must  pray  to  a  personal 
God  who,  they  think,  will  ward  off  their  calamities  and  then 
probably  give  them  eternal  life.  Others  find  their  ideas  and 
feelings  expressed  in  books  by  great  thinkers,  in  art,  in  music. 

The  leading  objections  that  Pascal  brings  against  philoso- 
phers is  probably  better  shown  in  the  "  Conversation  of  Pascal 
with  M.  De  Saci  on  Epictetus  and  Montaigne,"  which  is 
printed  in  some  editions  of  the  Thoughts.  The  Stoics  attrib- 
uted greatness  to  human  nature  while  the  Epicureans  and 
sceptics  attributed  weakness  to  it;  contrarieties  were  placed 
in  the  same  subject.  Now  faith  places  them  in  different  sub- 
jects, infirmity  is  placed  in  man  and  power  in  God.  There- 


PASCAL:   THOUGHTS  119 

fore  both  sects  should  accept  the  gospel  because  it  will  satisfy 
the  love  of  greatness  in  the  Stoic  sect  by  showing  them  that  a 
God  has  died  for  them  and  it  will  satisfy  the  other  two  sects 
by  showing  them  the  corruption  of  man  through  sin.  There- 
fore both  will  find  the  truth  in  the  gospel.  Pascal  shows  us 
here  his  strongest  argument  against  philosophy  and  for  Chris- 
tianity. It  appears  again  and  again  in  different  forms  through- 
out the  Thoughts. 

How  impotent  it  is  we  can  readily  see.  The  existence  of 
religion  does  not  depend  on  the  greatness  or  littleness  of  human 
nature.  A  religion  is  not  true  just  because  it  teaches  that  man 
is  corrupt  and  can  be  made  great.  A  religion  is  not  true  because 
it  contains  on  an  exaggerated  scale  the  germs  of  the  leading 
idea  in  two  different  and  opposite  schools  of  philosophy.  People 
may  believe  that  man  has  faults  or  that  he  is  often  grand, 
without  therefore  accepting  a  faith  that  teaches  man  was 
once  perfect  and  fell  and  that  he  may  again  become  great  by 
accepting  a  God  who  died  for  him.  And  then  it  matters  not 
whether  man  is  little  or  great.  Men  have  their  limitations 
and  powers,  and  religion  cannot  increase  the  one  nor  diminish 
the  other.  The  greatness  and  littleness  of  man  have  nothing 
at  all  to  do  with  the  question  as  to  whether  there  is  a  God  or 
not  and  what  His  nature  is. 

Pascal's  system  does  not  take  into  consideration  merit  but 
grace.  A  man  cannot  be  saved  by  his  own  deeds  and  virtues 
but  by  Divine  Grace.  Nor  can  man  help  being  corrupt  no 
matter  how  good  and  great  he  is.  Pascal  even  sought  to  make 
us  believe,  by  asking  us  to  start  with  some  religious  rites  like 
taking  holy  water  and  having  masses  said,  even  though  we  did 
not  believe  in  them. 


120  DANTE  AND  OTHER  WANING  CLASSICS 

Still  he  is  rich  in  general  ideas  and  these  are  among  his  more 
valuable  and  permanent  thoughts.  When  he  thinks  for  him- 
self and  does  not  refer  to  theology,  we  get  profound  views  that 
still  sway  us.  No  one  worshipped  thought  more  than  Pascal, 
no  one  felt  its  dignity  more.  He  has  given  us  some  ideas 
that  have  become  part  of  the  world's  way  of  thinking  and  yet 
they  do  not  savor  of  his  religion.  We  are  all  familiar  with 
his  comparison  of  man  to  a  thinking  reed,  who  is  more  noble 
than  a  universe  which  would  destroy  him  because  he  would 
know  that  he  is  dying  while  the  universe  would  not  know  what 
it  is  achieving.  It  is  Pascal  who  said  that  if  the  nose  of 
Cleopatra  had  been  shorter,  the  face  of  the  world  had  been 
changed,  and  if  there  hadn't  been  a  grain  of  sand  in  Crom- 
well's bladder  a  new  dynasty  and  religion  would  have  pre- 
vailed. In  short  when  Pascal  does  not  write  as  an  apologist 
for  religion  he  is  still  vital.  Critics  have  congratulated  them- 
selves that  he  never  finished  his  main  theme  and  gave  us  his 
philosophic  views  first. 

But  nevertheless  his  real  intention  as  an  apologist  over- 
shadowed his  secular  thoughts.  We  admire  and  love  him, 
but  we  feel  that  he  is  already  largely  obsolete.  "  We  cannot 
follow  him  without  treason  to  our  highest  interests,"  said 
Leslie  Stephen  of  him.  We  are  interested  in  his  pains  and  in 
the  fact  that  he  set  up  an  ideal  for  himself  even  though  it  is 
not  our  own.  We  watch  a  fellow  creature  troubled  about 
some  things  that  do  not  disturb  many  of  us.  We  know  of  his 
great  physical  sufferings  and  our  heart  bleeds  for  him.  We 
try  not  to  appear  angry  at  his  misanthropy  and  his  unnatural- 
ness.  But  we  feel  that  he  is  more  often  in  the  wrong  than  in 
the  right.  We  see  in  him  a  man  who  loved  the  truth  passion- 
ately and  who  almost  invariably  grasped  at  falsehood.  He 


PASCAL  :    THOUGHTS  121 

is  surpassed  intellectually  by  most  of  the  great  sceptics  of 
France  in  the  seventeenth  century.  Their  views  have  received 
additional  support  by  the  latest  scientific  discoveries  and 
many  of  these  men  are  undeservedly  forgotten,  overshadowed 
by  Pascal.  He  is  not  one  of  the  real  glories  of  French  litera- 
ture. The  prose  literature  of  France  in  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries  can  show  us  greater  thinkers. 

Pascal's  Thoughts  is  another  one  of  those  classics  whose 
fame  declined  in  the  eighteenth  century.  It  would  be  well 
for  the  progress  of  thought  that  his  sun  should  set  again.  The 
modern  apologists  for  dogma  who  are  not  honest  thinkers 
draw  largely  from  the  Thoughts.  Pascal  after  Darwin  sounds 
anomalous.  The  man  who  bases  philosophy  on  revelation 
and  morality  on  asceticism  is  antiquated  for  modern  times. 
Yet  much  can  be  extracted  from  his  works  to  give  him  a 
fairly  respectable  though  not  a  very  high  place  in  the  temple 
of  fame.  Probably  he  deserves  to  be  better  known  for  his 
mathematical  and  scientific  discoveries  than  for  his  religious 
apologies.  The  laws  he  discovered  about  atmospheric  pres- 
sure and  the  equilibrium  of  fluids  are  still  true ;  his  Christian 
evidence  is  obsolete.  The  world  will  always  regret  that  a 
precocious  mathematical  genius  who  composed  a  treatise  on 
Conic  Sections  before  he  was  16  years  old  should  have  stepped 
out  into  an  abyss  of  superstition  and  dogma. 

What  is  surprising  is  the  hold  he  has  had  on  modern  writers 
like  St.  Beuve  and  Pater.  Even  Nietzsche  loved  him.  Nietz- 
sche called  him  the  "  only  logical  Christian  "  and  blamed  his 
ruin  on  Christianity.  But  George  Moore  was  bold  enough  to 
write:  " Les  Pensees  could  appear  to  me  only  as  infinitely 
childish ;  the  form  is  no  doubt  superb,  but  tiresome  and  sterile 
to  one  of  such  modern  and  exotic  taste  as  myself." 


APPENDIX 
ADVERSE  VIEWS  ON  DANTE 

Landor  said :  "  It  would  be  difficult  to  form  an  idea  of  a 
poem  into  which  so  many  personages  are  introduced  contain- 
ing so  few  delineations  of  character,  so  few  touches  that  excite 
sympathy,  so  few  elementary  signs  for  our  instruction,  so  few 
topics  for  our  delight,  so  few  excursions  for  our  recreation." 

Emerson's  biographer,  Cabot,  reports  the  opinion  of  the 
sage  of  Concord  on  the  Florentine  poet  as  follows :  "  A  man 
to  put  in  a  museum,  but  not  in  your  house:  another  Zerah 
Colburn;  a  prodigy  of  imaginative  function,  executive  rather 
than  contemplative  or  wise."  (Zerah  Colburn  was  a  mathe- 
matical prodigy.) 

Oliver  Goldsmith  said :  "  He  shows  a  strange  mixture  of 
good  sense  and  absurdity.  The  truth  is,  he  owes  most  of  his 
reputation  to  the  obscurity  of  the  times  in  which  he  lived. 
As  in  the  land  of  Benim  a  man  may  pass  as  a  prodigy  of 
parts  who  can  read,  so  in  an  age  of  barbarity  a  small  degree 
of  excellence  secures  success." 

Strindberg  in  his  autobiography  speaks  thus  of  the  Divine 
Comedy:  "Even  with  regard  to  its  own  time  the  work  is 
not  an  epoch-making  one;  it  is  not  in  advance  of  its  period, 
but  belongs  strictly  to  it,  or  rather  lags  behind  it.  It  is 
a  linguistic  monument  for  Italy,  nothing  more  ....  it  is 
too  insignificant  to  be  regarded  as  a  link  in  the  development 
of  culture." 

Voltaire  in  his  correspondence  writes  as  follows :  "  There 
are  to  be  found  among  us,  in  the  eighteenth  century,  people 
9 


124  APPENDIX 

who  force  themselves  to  admire  feats  of  imagination  as  stu- 
pidly extravagant  and  as  barbarous  as  this." 

Goethe  registered  this  opinion  in  his  Italian  Travels :  "  The 
hell  was  to  me  altogether  horrible,  the  purgatory  neither  one 
thing  nor  another,  and  the  paradise  dreadfully  slow." 

Leigh  Hunt  says :  "  Such  a  vision  as  that  of  his  poem  (in  a 
theological  point  of  view)  seems  no  better  than  the  dream  of 
a  hypochondriacal  savage  and  his  nutshell  a  rottenness  to  be 
spit  out  of  the  mouth." 

Lamartine,  the  French  poet,  finds  in  Dante  "  a  coarse  triv- 
iality which  descends  to  cynicism  of  expression  and  debauchery 
of  image,  a  quintessence  of  scholastic  theology  which  rises  to 
vaporisation  of  the  idea,  finally  to  say  everything  in  a  word,  a 
great  man  and  a  bad  book." 

To  Horace  Walpole  "  Dante  was  extravagant,  absurd,  dis- 
gusting ;  in  short,  a  Methodist  parson  in  Bedlam." 

To  Nietzsche  Dante  was  "  the  hyena  poetising  in  tombs." 

Howard  Candler  in  an  article  called  "  The  Black-Washing 
of  Dante  "  published  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  says :  "  And 
so  we  leave  him,  the  mighty  personification  of  medievalism  and 
scholasticism,  the  last  apostle  of  unquestioning  faith  in  the 
figments  of  tradition,  without  a  single  lesson  for  the  future, 
and  utterly  unmoved  by  any  free  breath  of  that  sceptical  spirit 
which  ushered  in  the  Reformation  and  the  modern  world." 

ADVERSE  VIEWS  ON  MILTON 

Carlyle  is  quoted  in  Cunningham's  Diary  as  follows : 
"Paradise  Lost  is  absurd.     I  never  could  take  to  it  all — 

though  now  and  again  clouds  of  splendor  rolled  in  upon  the 

scene." 


APPENDIX  125 

Goethe's  verdict  appears  in  a  letter  to  Schiller  dated  July 
31,  1799: 

"  The  subject  is  detestable,  outwardly  plausible  and  inwardly 
worm-eaten  and  hollow.  With  the  exception  of  the  few  natural 
and  vigorous  motives  there  are  a  number  which  are  lame  and 
false,  and  which  offend  one." 

Poe  wrote :  "  The  fact  is,  if  the  'Paradise  Lost  were  written 
to-day  (assuming  that  it  had  never  been  written  when  it 
was),  not  even  its  eminent,  although  overestimated  merits, 
would  counterbalance,  either  in  the  public  view,  or  in  the 
opinion  of  any  critic  at  once  intelligent  and  honest,  the  multi- 
tudinous incongruities  that  are  part  and  parcel  of  its  plot." 

Samuel  Johnson  spoke  for  many  people  when  he  said: 
"  Paradise  Lost  is  one  of  the  books  which  the  reader  admires 
and  lays  down,  and  forgets  to  take  up  again.  No  one  ever 
wished  it  longer  than  it  is.  Its  perusal  is  a  duty  rather  than 
a  pleasure." 

Of  course  Walt  Whitman  would  hardly  care  for  the  poem. 
He  said  to  Horace  Traubel  ".-...  even  as  a  story  it  enlists 
little  of  my  attention :  he  seems  to  me  like  a  bird — soaring  yet 
overweighted :  dragged  down  as  if  hindered — too  greatly  hin- 
dered :  a  lamb  in  its  beak :  its  flight  not  graceful,  powerful, 
beautiful,  satisfying,  like  the  gulls  we  see  on  the  Delaware  in 
midwinter." 

Voltaire  in  his  novel  Candide  has  a  character  who  speaks 
thus  of  the  renowned  work :  "  This  obscure  poem,  fantastic 
and  revolting,  was  despised  when  it  first  made  its  appearance, 
and  I  treat  it  now  as  it  was  treated  in  his  (Milton's)  own 
country  by  his  own  generation." 

Scherer,  the  noted  French  critic,  exclaimed :  "  Paradise  Lost 
is  an  unreal  poem,  a  grotesque  poem,  a  tiresome  poem.  There 


126  APPENDIX 

is  not  one  reader  in  a  hundred  who  can  read  books  nine  and 
ten  without  a  smile,  or  books  eleven  and  twelve  without  a 
yawn.  The  thing  does  not  hold  together:  it  is  a  pyramid 
balanced  on  its  apex,  the  most  terrible  of  problems  solved  by 
the  most  childish  of  means." 

A  still  greater  critic,  Taine,  said :  "  He  gives  us  correct 
solemn  discourse,  and  gives  us  nothing  more;  his  characters 
are  speeches,  and  in  their  sentiments  we  find  only  heaps  of 
puerilities  and  contradictions." 

The  author  of  Omar  Khayam,  Fitzgerald,  remarked :  "  I 
never  could  read  ten  lines  of  Paradise  Lost  without  stumbling 
at  some  pedantry  that  tipped  me  at  once  out  of  paradise  or 
even  hell  into  the  schoolroom  worse  than  either." 

ADVERSE  VIEWS  ON  BUNYAN 

Poe  wrote :  "  That  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  is  a  ludicrously 
overrated  book,  owing  its  seeming  popularity  to  one  or  two  of 
those  accidents  in  critical  literature  which  by  the  critical  are 
sufficiently  well  understood,  is  a  matter  upon  which  no  two 
thinking  people  disagree." 

The  late  Samuel  Butler,  whom  Shaw  rediscovered  for  us, 
said :  "  The  'Pilgrim's  Progress  consists  mainly  of  a  series  of 
infamous  libels  upon  life  and  things ;  it  is  a  blasphemy  against 
certain  fundamental  ideas  of  right  and  wrong  which  our  con- 
sciences most  instinctly  approve There  is  no  conception 

of  the  faith  that  a  man  should  do  his  duty  cheerfully,  with  all 
his  might,  though,  as  far  as  he  can  see,  he  will  never  be  paid 
directly  or  indirectly  either  here  or  hereafter." 

Taine  wrote  in  a  letter  as  follows,  about  the  celebrated 
allegory :  "  It  is  a  nursery  tale,  a  blood-curdling  allegory, 
showing  the  terrible  inner  mind  of  one  of  those  fanatics; 


APPENDIX  127 

groans,  invasions  of  the  spirit,  the  belief  in  damnation,  visions 
of  the  devil,  scruples,  etc." 

Eichard  Bowling  in  a  book  called  Ignorant  Essays  says: 
"  The  whole  thing  is  grotesquely  absurd  and  impossible  to 
imagine.  There  is  no  sobriety  in  it ;  no  sobriety  of  keeping  in 
it ;  and  no  matter  how  wild  the  effort  or  vision  of  imagination 
may  be  there  must  always  be  sobriety  of  keeping  in  it,  or  it  is 
delirium,  not  imagination,  disease,  not  inspiration.  As  far  as 
I  can  see  there  is  no  trace  of  imagination  or  even  fancy  in  the 
Pilgrim's  Progress.  The  story  never  happened  at  all.  It  is 
a  horrible  attempt  to  tinkerize  the  Bible." 

Francis  Thompson,  the  poet,  reviewing  Bowling's  book  sym- 
pathetically, speaks  thus  of  the  allegory :  "  We  have  searched 
the  book  in  vain  for  a  single  scene  with  a  single  master-touch 
of  delineation ;  and  the  result  has  been  thoroughly  to  convince 
us  that  the  man  was  incapable  of  such  a  thing,  he  knew  him- 
self incapable,  and  therefore  instinctively  shirked  description." 


"  The  subject  which  you  have  chosen  is  most  interesting  and  you  have  treated  it 
with  a  certain  superiority.  Of  course  you  are  right,  we  should  no  longer  adopt  the 
old  ideas  expressed  in  the  so-called  classical  books.  .  .  .1  think  that  you  are 
very  well  gifted." — George  Brandes. 

The  Shifting  of  Literary  Values 

By  Albert  Mordell 

Paper  bound,  84  pages.  8vo.  Price  50  cents,  net.  Acropolis  Pub- 
lishing Company,  Phila. 

Comments  Upon  The  Shifting  of  Literary  Values 

Sir  Arthur  W.  Pinero:    An  exhaustive  and  thoughtful  work. 
John  Galsworthy:    I  thought  it  very  ably  written. 

Havelock  Ellis:  Has  a  useful  function  to  perform,  and  I  hope  it 
will  be  widely  read.  It  should  help  many  to  see  where  they 
stand. 

Arnold  Bennet:    In  principle  I  am  decidedly  in  agreement  with  it. 

Henry  Mills  Alden:  I  read  it  at  one  sitting  as  I  found  it  interesting. 
The  argument  is  adequate  within  the  compass  of  the  intended 
application. 

Bliss  Perry:  I  have  read  it  twice  with  genuine  interest.  The 
theoretical  basis  of  the  essay  seems  to  me  sound,  but  I  suppose 
no  two  of  us  would  think  quite  alike  in  the  matter  of  concrete 
application  of  the  general  principle. 

George  E.  Woodberry:  What  I  like  in  the  essay,  is  its  acquaintance 
with  the  field,  its  thoughtfulness  and  careful  way  and  its 
independence;  it  makes  for  freedom,  too,  in  all  its  proposals, 
and  for  the  opportunity  of  growth  by  sincerity.  In  a  word,  I 
like  the  spirit  of  it  altogether. 

William  Lyon  Phelps:  What  I  particularly  like  about  it  is  its 
absolutely  correct  position  that  the  classics  should  not  be 
judged  by  traditional  weight  of  authority,  but  by  each  indi- 
vidual modern  reader.  I  value  independence  in  all  matters 
of  criticism  as  in  everything  else.  Let  each  man  speak  the 
truth  about  works  of  art  as  he  sees  the  truth. 


"He  is  not  a  crude  philistine  entering  the  ranks  of  literary 
criticism  solely  for  the  purpose  of  trying  to  smash  long-established 
reputations,  just  for  the  fun  of  the  thing.  He  belongs  to  the  pro- 
gressive school  of  thought,  and  is  anxious  to  make  us  think  about 
the  classics  instead  of  dreaming  about  them.  We  cannot  agree 
with  Mr.  Mordell  on  many  points,  but  we  are  bound  to  admit  that 
there  is  a  certain  amount  of  truth  in  his  argument,  much  to  com- 
mend in  his  appeal  that  we  should  reverently  examine  some  of  our 
literary  gods,  and  test  them,  not  by  ancient  tradition,  ancient 
praise,  but  in  the  light  of  modern  thought." — F.  Hadland  Davis  in 
The  Academy  (London). 

"  The  Shifting  of  Literary  Values,  by  Albert  Mordell,  is  a  useful 

piece  of  work  which  is  well  worth  the  doing Many  persons 

no  doubt  will  be  shocked  at  the  attacks  upon  their  literary  idols. 
But  when  once  they  perceive  that  their  whole  outlook  on  life  has 
changed,  and  that  the  ideas  presented  in  the  great  masterpieces 
of  literature  are  entirely  antagonistic  to  all  their  beliefs,  they  will 
acknowledge,  if  they  are  honest,  that  literary  values  have  changed. 
Mr.  Mordell  has  struck  a  rich  vein,  which  we  should  like  to  see 
worked  on  a  larger  scale  than  in  the  pamphlet  before  us." — West- 
minister Review. 

"  The  eternal  conflict  between  the  radical  and  conservative  finds 
new  and  vivid  expression  in  a  booklet  published  by  Albert  Mordell, 
of  Philadelphia.  Mr.  Mordell  can  best  be  described  as  a  literary 
insurgent.  He  has  all  the  fire  and  impetuosity  of  youth,  and,  like 
a  new  David,  he  goes  out  to  engage  in  combat  with  the  Giant  of 
Tradition." — Current  Literature. 

"  Does  the  dead  hand  of  classic  literature,  fastening  chains 
forged  of  obsolete  and  forgotten  ideals,  hold  us  to  a  moral  and 
intellectual  stagnancy?  The  author  of  this  essay  says  it  does,  and 
what  is  worse,  in  large  part  he  proves  it.  His  treatise  is  a  keen, 
penetrating  analysis  of  literary  values,  in  which  there  is  a  thrill- 
ing destruction  of  ancient  literary  idols  which  everybody  puts  on 
his  shelves — and  nearly  everybody  leaves  there." — Duluth  (Minn.) 
Herald. 

"  The  Shifting  of  Literary  Values,  by  the  way  an  admirable  title, 
uses  various  arguments  to  bring  about  the  conclusion  that  books 
of  the  old  writers  permeated  with  the  ideas  of  monasticism, 
stoicism,  feudalism  and  puritanism,  are  of  scant,  if  any  value,  the 

world  having  moved  beyond  their  doctrines  and  sentiments 

Literature  is  progressive,  moves  with  the  times,  becomes  the 
thinking  pulse  of  every  generation.  That  the  old  writers  thought 
differently,  felt  differently  than  is  general  to-day,  and  in  conse 
quence  wrote  differently  is  only  natural.  The  standards  of  one 
age  are  not  those  of  another;  and  that  in  this  train  should  occur 
a  shifting  of  moral  and  henceforth  of  literary  values  is  a  problem 
of  pure  and  simple  common  sense." — The  Craftsman  (New  York). 


"  The  book  is  extraordinary  because  it  does  what  many  other 
people  (including,  we  fancy,  George  Brandes,  whose  disciple  Mr. 

Mordell  is)   have  long  been  desiring  to  do While  George 

Brandes  (perhaps)  has  been  drilling  his  forces,  this  hot-headed 
critic  has  led  his  mob  of  sans  culottes  for  an  attack  on  the  Bastille 

of  critical  tradition All  that  we  can  do  is  to  urge  our  readers 

to  procure  this  book,  and  find  out  how  many  notable  critics  have 
agreed  with  them  in  their  private  literary  heresies." — Chicago 
Evening  Post  Friday  Literary  Supplement  (Editorial). 

"  Mr.  Mordell  gives  evidence  of  wide  and  careful  reading,  and 
his  judgments  are  expressed  with  scholarly  sobriety.  His  little 
book  deserves  the  attention  of  every  lover  of  literature,  because  it 
is  stimulating  even  to  those  who  disagree,  and  opens  up  subjects 
for  speculation  that  will  surely  arouse  new  interest  in  matters 
literary." — The  Philadelphia  Record. 

"  The  intention  and  spirit  of  The  Shifting  of  Literary  Values, 
by  Albert  Mordell,  are  sincere  and  reasonable  enough,  for  there 
is  no  doubt  about  the  shifting  sands  of  literature,  nor  the  old  fact 

that  it  can  express  only  the  human  nature  back  of  it Mr. 

Mordell  has  the  right  idea,  where  the  shifting  values  are  con- 
cerned ;  life  is  doing  its  best  to  shift  them." — Baltimore  News. 

"  That  many  a  mute  inglorious  Milton  lies  buried  in  the  church- 
yards is  asserted  anew  by  Albert  Mordell,  in  his  new  volume,  The 

Shifting  of  Literary  Values Mordell  insists  that  the  pagans, 

Plato,  Epictetus,  Aurelius  and  Boethius  have  been  elevated  to  a 
place  on  the  parlor  table  with  Baxter  and  Bunyan  merely  because 
they,  too,  advocated  stoicism  and  derived  euphemistic  maxims 
that  weren't  so  to  bolster  up  an  impossible  theory  of  the  justice 
of  life,  whereas  powerful  thinkers  like  Lucretius,  Lucian,  Spinoza, 
Montaigne  and  Stendhal  have  been  ignored  until  the  present 
European  renaissance  in  literature  and  thought." — Detroit 
Tribune  (Editorial). 

"  Mr.  Mordell's  main  thesis  is  essentially  sound.  Literary 
values  are  shifting  because  our  moral  viewpoint  is  shifting.  Good- 
ness in  our  day  is  coming  more  and  more  to  be  a  matter  of  helping 
as  many  of  one's  fellow  men  as  possible,  and  books  embodying  the 
old  monastic  and  puritanic  ideals  have  less  value  for  us — other 
things  being  equal — than  books  filled  with  the  spirit  of  social 
service." — Chicago  Record-Herald. 

" .  .  .  .  This  little  book  by  Mordell  shows  us  how  unwise  and 
illogical  it  is  for  us  to  class  under  the  general  head  of  great  a  list 
of  old  philosophies  so  contradictory  that  they  devour  one  another, 
and  so  reflective  of  the  morality  of  the  time  that  gave  them  birth 
that  they  are  utterly  out  of  harmony  with  present  day  social  and 
personal  ethics." — Paul  Hanna  in  The  Evening  Telegraph 
(Phila.). 


"  If  it  be  true  that  this  work  is  such  '  a  radical  onslaught '  as 
contended,  then  so  much  the  better,  for  Mr.  Mordell  has  splendidly 
demonstrated  the  reasons  for  the  attack  and  has  supplied  the  best 
brief  argument  for  his  position  that  one  could  possibly  make." — 
Justin  H.  Shaw,  The  Call,  (New  York). 

"  From  Philadelphia,  the  home  of  the  Saturday  Evening  Post 
and  the  Ladies'  Home  Journal,  comes  a  modest  little  blue-covered 
brochure  that  has  more  real  intellectual  significance  than  half  a 
hundred  issues  of  either  of  the  much-advertised  and  widely-circu- 
lated periodicals  named.  It  is  called  The  Shifting  of  Literary 
Values." — Los  Angeles  Times. 


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